66 EXPORT AND MANUFACTURING TOBACCOS. 
A number of reasons conspired to bring about the rapid introduction 
and extension of tobacco growing into eastern North Carolina and 
South Carolina in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Among 
these reasons the low price of cotton is noteworthy. The entire New 
Belt section is a cotton-producing country and any decided shifting 
in the balance between the price of cotton and tobacco is quickly re- 
flected in the acreage and production of tobacco. The production 
of New Belt tobacco from year to year is therefore subject to extreme 
fluctuations amounting to doubling the crop in some instances and 
halving it in others. In 1903, when the maximum of production was 
reached in the New Belt, the crop was estimated at over 125,000,000 
Fic. 28.—Stringing the leaves of tobacco of the flue-cured type in the New Belt section near Green- 
ville, Pitt Co., N. C. 
pounds; 1n 1904, under the influence of very low prices for tobacco and 
high prices for cotton, it was less than 60,000,000 pounds. | 
Cotton is not grown to any considerable extent, however, in the 
Old Belt section and the tobacco crop, therefore, is very much more 
uniform from year to year in regard to acreage, as no other money crop 
is available to which the acreage can readily be shifted. Although 
the Old Belt crop of 1903 was also large, amounting to about 125,000,- 
000 pounds with correspondingly low prices, the crop of 1904 was only 
about 10,000,000 pounds less than in 1903. 
Although the New Belt crop of tobacco exceeded that of the Old 
Belt in 1903, it is normally about 25,000,000 pounds a year less than 
the Old Belt. The normal production of the Old Belt district at the 
present time stated in round numbers is about 120,000,000 pounds, 
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