It was not until after the end of the Revolutionary War that the use of 

 tobacco in domestic manufacture first assumed importance in this country. 

 Presently, about 70 percent of a tobacco crop is used domestically in the pro- 

 duction of cigars, cigarettes, and other forms of manufacture. Today, about 

 95 percent of the tobacco produced in the United States is sold to the highest 

 bidder in the auction warehouses. Bidders are usually manufacturers and 

 dealers who buy the leaf for use in the manufacture of the various products, 

 or for export. 



The tobacco in common use today is very unlike that which the settlers 

 found growing in the Indian villages along the James, Rappahannock, and other 

 rivers of Tidewater Virginia. Most of this tobacco was a strong type be- 

 longing to the species Nicotinia rustica L. , believed to have originated in 

 Mexico. The English colonists learned of the milder and more aromatic vari- 

 eties of the species Nicotinia tabacum L. , which probably originated in 

 Brazil, and in time they adopted this kind for their production. 



The growing of tobacco in Maryland began in the 1630' s. During the 

 eighteenth century, Virginia and Maryland grew the bulk of the country's crop. 

 At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, exports were about 100 million 

 pounds annually, nearly all of which was produced in Virginia and Maryland. 

 Soon after the War, culture was extended into Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, 

 Missouri, and North Carolina. Today it is also grown commercially in South 

 Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, 

 Connecticut, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. 



As tobacco culture was carried from the first settlement at Jamestown in- 

 to new territory, it was seen that the changes in soil and climate caused im- 

 portant differences in the characteristics of the tobacco produced. Gradually 

 it became apparent that these differences in the properties of the tobacco 

 leaf greatly affected its suitability for use in different manufactured forms. 

 Through gradual evolution, tobacco culture has become highly specialized. Each 

 district produces a special type of leaf particularly adapted for certain 

 uses: cigarettes, cigars, smoking or chewing tobacco, and snuff. It has been 

 found that special types of tobacco can be produced only under certain condi- 

 tions of soil and climate, by using certain varieties, and by following spe- 

 cial methods in growing and curing the crop. 



From the beginning made by John Rolfe at Jamestown, tobacco production, 

 marketing, and use have contributed important chapters to American history. 



Currently about 450,000 farm families in the United States and Puerto 

 Rico grow tobacco for sale. Total annual gross income to farmers from the 

 crop is 1.2 billion dollars. Tobacco growing requires a great deal of labor. 

 A farmer and his family (or hired workers) must put in about 250 man-hours or 

 more to raise one acre of tobacco. This may be contrasted to the average a- 

 mount of labor--about 3 hours—needed to raise an acre of wheat. Tobacco 

 farmers say there is a thirteenth month in their calendar year, "Tobaccuary," 

 made up of all the extra hours they have to work- -before dawn and after dark-- 

 to produce a tobacco crop. 



