B. P. I.— 234. 



TOBACCO BREEDING 



INTRODUCTION. 



The growing importance of the tobacco industry may be realized 

 from a brief summary of the estimates of the value of the crop in the 

 United States in the season of 1906. About 796,099 acres of tobacco 

 were grown, producing an average yield of 857.2 pounds to the acre, 

 or a total of 682,428,530 pounds. The average value of the crop was 

 10.0 cents a pound, or a total of about $68,232,647. While it is 

 almost impossible to comprehend the magnitude of the value of the 

 manufactured products of tobacco, a glance at the total figures may 

 convey some idea of the development of this great and distinctively 

 American industry. In 1900 the total value of the manufactured 

 products of tobacco was $283,076,546. - These products may be divided 

 into three general classes, of which the values were as follows : Cigars 

 and cigarettes, $160,223,152; chewing, smoking, and snuff products 

 $103,754,362; stemmed and rehandled tobacco, $19,099,032. In the 

 manufacture of these products 142,277 people were employed, who 

 earned a total wage of $49,852,484. In addition to the tobacco grown 

 in the United States there was imported into the United States in the 

 year ended June 30, 1906, $4,143,192 worth of tobacco in a manufac- 

 tured condition and $22,447,514 worth of unmanufactured prod- 

 ucts, making the total value of the importations during this period 

 $26,590,706. During the same time the exports of manufactured 

 tobacco were valued at $5,410,480, and of unmanufactured tobacco 

 at . $28,808,367. In 1891 the tobacco industry furnished almost 

 $50,000,000 revenue to the Federal Government, and the revenue from 

 this source now amounts to about one-eighth of the Government's 

 total net receipts. 



The United States now grows by far the largest quantity of tobacco 

 produced by any country in the world. While tobacco was grown by 

 the first settlers in the colonies and was one of their principal cash 

 crops, the extensive development of this industry has been a matter of 

 comparatively recent years. The introduction of tobacco into the 

 different sections of the United States, with their widely varying 



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