AMERICAN TOBACCO TYPES, USES, AND MARKETS eo 
countries and in time adopted them in preference to the stronger, 
less agreeable N. rustica. 
Production of tobacco is highly localized. The type of tobacco 
known as Virginia sun-cured, for example, is produced in a small 
group of counties in central Virginia. The characteristics that dis- 
tinguish this type result from the combination of soil and climatic 
conditions, method of curing, and variety of seed found only in that 
section. These characteristics are so distinctive as to set this type 
apart from all other types of tobacco. The same is true in greater 
or less degree of all the 26 types recognized by the official classifica- 
tion of American-grown tobacco (27). 
In addition to the influences of variety, soil, weather, and curing 
methods in localizing tobacco culture and in differentiating the types, 
the influence of established demand is important. Over a long period 
of years the tastes of tobacco consumers have become accustomed 
to certain qualities. The trade that has developed by catering to 
these tastes looks to certain well-defined areas for continued supplies 
of the grades and qualities of leaf upon which depends the continued 
popularity of the manufactured product. In consequence, markets 
have been established in those centers of production where each year 
buyers assemble for the purchase of certain specific kinds of tobacco. 
Growing out of these factors and those discussed in relation to 
tobacco consuming habits (p. 115), there has resulted a well-defined 
geography of tobacco production in the United States with the lines 
of demarcation between different type districts more or less sharply 
defined. (See folded map.) 
In some instances the line is clear-cut, as for instance where it is 
marked by some natural feature.? In others there is a transition 
zone wherein districts overlap and two or more types of tobacco 
may be found. In such transition zones, that type for which current 
demand is greatest will predominate. 
Intimately associated with this localization of tobacco production 
by types is its differentiation according to uses and manufacturing 
qualities. Some types are primarily cigar types; others are primarily 
cigarette, smoking, chewing, or snuff types. All of them have addi- 
tional or secondary uses. - 
LIMITATIONS ON CHANGING OF TYPES 
Related to the factors that have resulted in the localization of 
tobacco production by types is the question whether growers in a 
specific district could change from one type to another, or from one 
curing method to another, as a means of increasing profits. Such 
changes are possible only within very narrow limits. The factors that 
contribute to qualities and characteristics by which the types are 
3 A conspicuous example of this is the boundary between types 22 and 23, the Eastern fire-cured and 
Western fire-cured districts respectively, of Kentucky and Tennessee. The ‘boundary is marked by the 
Tennessee River, and the distinguishing differences in the two types are due to marked differences in the 
soils of the two areas. Soils east of the river were formed mainly by the weathering of the parent limestone 
in place. Those west of the river are mainly soils deposited by the Mississippi River in earlier geological 
times when the region was part of the Mississippi River embayment of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Another example is the boundary between types 11 and 12 in North Carolina. Here an escarpment, 
easily traceable in places, shows the eastern line of the Piedmont and the western edge of the Coastal Plain— 
each province possessing distinctive types and structures of soil with resulting differences in the tobacco 
produced. (See discussion of flue-cured types.) 
