FLUE-CURED TOBACCO. 61 
cigarette, in a great measure accounts for the rapid spread of the pro- 
duction of the flue-cured type of tobacco. In the early days the 
tobacco was granulated or flaked by means of flails or sticks, now of 
course superseded by special granulating machinery. 
Flue-cured tobacco is also used extensively in the production of 
machine-made cigarettes and is the most important type of tobacco 
for this purpose produced in the United States. The cigarette grades, 
generally designated as cigarette cutters, are ranked among the better 
grades of leaf. They must be sound and must possess good life and 
oil as well as good color and fineness of fiber, but do not need to 
possess quite the body and toughness necessary in a plug wrapper. 
This district also produces a large percentage of the leaf used in 
wrapping plug, both of the flat Winston Salem type and of the 
western type made from heavily sweetened Burley. These plug 
wrappers constitute the highest grades of flue-cured tobacco and bring 
from 25 to 50 cents a pound, according to the supply and to the body 
fineness and color of the leaf itself. The middle section of the flue- 
cured district from Henderson, N. C., to Danville, Va., produces the 
largest percentage of leaf suited for plug wrappers. Specially noted 
sections producing a high grade of wrapper leaf are the Dutchville 
district of Granville County, N. C., and the White Oak Mountain 
district of Pittsylvania and Halifax Counties, Va. About 60 per 
cent of the total flue-cured crop is used in domestic consumption. 
EXPORT DEMAND. 
While the flue-cured type of tobacco is particularly adapted for 
manufacture and use in domestic consumption and is most extensively 
used at home, it is, nevertheless, also a favorite export type, with a 
constantly expanding foreign market. It is about the only type of 
tobacco produced in this country which has tended in recent years to 
decidedly increase the volume of our exports of leaf tobacco. This 
export trade would probably increase more rapidly were it not for 
the sharp competition of domestic demand, resulting in relatively 
high prices as compared with the other export types. 
Great Britain and the British possessions, Canada, South Africa, 
and Australasia, are by far the most important foreign customers for 
this type of tobacco. These countries use it principally for smoking 
tobacco and cigarettes. China, Japan, and some of the European 
countries also make use of this type in considerable quantities. 
The trade reports of the principal markets of Great Britain indicate 
that that country alone takes from 45,000,000 to 50,000,000 pounds 
of our flue-cured type of leaf annually. 
In the foreign trade flue-cured tobacco is often joken of as Vir- 
ginia leaf or strips, probably because in the past, as is also still largely 
true, it was exported in great part through the markets of Virginia, 
particularly Richmond and Danville, although, of course, North 
244 
