AMERICAN TOBACCO TYPES, USES, AND MARKETS 23 
therefore, that Virginia planters were not permitted to ship their to- 
bacco except to English ports, and they could not take direct advantage 
of the rapidly spreading popularity of tobacco in continental Europe. 
English merchants, therefore, became necessary middlemen between 
Virginia growers and European consumers, and to a large extent 
were the beneficiaries of the expanding trade in Virginia tobacco. 
English shipowners were favored by governmental restrictions, which 
required that the tobacco be shipped in English bottoms. 
Similar restrictions could not be placed upon Maryland, whose 
palatinate form of government gave the colony certain sovereign 
rights and exempted it from the application of British dominion 
policies. The result was that very early an important trade in tobacco 
AMA 1762 
Figure 10.—A modern Maryland curing barn. The ventilators may be opened 
or closed according to atmospheric conditions. 
was established with France and the Netherlands, which has persisted 
except for wartime interruptions. 
Maryland tobacco is air-cured. In former years, some fire-cured 
tobacco known as upper country or bay was produced. The quantity 
was so small that it was not separated jin the statistics of acreage and 
production for the State. Figure 10 shows the type of curing barn 
used, which is so constructed as to permit free circulation of air. 
The tobacco is classed with Burley as light air-cured and some strains 
of it, illustrated by figure 11, resemble the stand-up varieties of that 
type in appearance and habit of growth. (Compare figs. 11, and 8.) 
On the other hand, much Maryland tobaccd is known as broadleaf, 
