It was not until after the close of the Revolutionary War that the use of 
tobacco in domestic manufacture first assumed importance in this country. At 
the present time, about 70 percent of a tobacco crop is used domestically in 
the production 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 being mostly manufacturers 
and dealers who buy the leaf for use in the manufacture of the various products, 
or for export. 
The tobacco in common use todayis very much 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 belonging 
to the species Nicotinia rustica L., believed to have originated in Mexico. 
The English colonists learned of the milder and more aromatic varieties 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, and 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, 
nearly all of which was produced in these two States. Soon after the War, cul- 
ture was extended into Kentucky, Temessee, Ohio, Missouri, and North Carolina. 
Today, it is grown commercially, in addition to these States, 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 into 
new territory, it was seen that the changes in soil and climate caused impor- 
tant 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 producing a special type of leaf particularly adapted for certain uses: 
whether in cigarettes, cigars, smoking, or chewing tobacco. It has been found 
that special types of tobacco can be produced only under certain conditions of 
soil and climate, by using certain varieties, and by following special 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 in American agricultural 
history. 
Currently about 600,000farm families in the United States and Puerto Rico 
grow tobacco for sale. Total annual gross income to farmers from the crop is 
over a billion dollars; costs must be subtracted from the gross income to arrive 
at a net figure. Tobacco growing requires a great deal of labor. A farmer and 
his family (supplemented by some hired help) must put in about 400 man-hours 
of labor to raise one acre of tobacco. This may be contrasted to the average 
amount of labor - about 8 hours - needed to raise an acre of wheat. Tobacco 
farmers say there is a thirteenth month in their calendar year, called "Tobaccuary," 
made up of all the extra hours they have to work - before dawn and after dark - 
to produce a tobacco crop. 
