During the survey period, the cost to reweigh and restore a hogshead of 
tobacco was $1.79. This was estimated to be $1.94 for 1968. Reweighing a 
hogshead of tobacco while performing some other service was 54 cents in 1966/67 
and an estimated 57 cents in 1968. 
Costs of performing other services, a minor part of total services, were 
subtracted from firm costs. 
These findings indicate Maryland tobacco costs are relatively high in 
relation to those for flue-cured and Burley tobaccos. Three factors are mainly 
responsible: 
1. Average volume processed per plant is only 20 percent of that processed 
for flue-cured and 34 percent of that for Burley. 
2. Average storage capacity per firm is only 21 percent of flue-cured and 
36 percent of Burley. 
3. Maryland tobacco is packed with less than 80 percent of the average 
weight per hogshead packed for flue-cured and Burley. 
All three factors result in increased operating costs and the third factor 
results in increased hogshead cost per hundred-weight. 
High-cost items in relation to flue-cured and Burley were labor costs, 
taxes, and interest on land values--generally higher in the metropolitan areas 
close to where Maryland tobacco is handled than in the relatively rural areas 
in which Burley and flue-cured tobaccos are handled. 
