WHITE BURLEY TOBACCO. WAL 
it was so named for Lord Burleigh of England; in any event, a 
Burley tobacco was cultivated in this Ohio River section for some 
years prior to the Civil War. It was not, however, the White Burley 
as we now know it. 
The development of the present type of White Burley, possessing 
the peculiar creamy-white color modification of stem, stalk, and 
veins, and also to a degree of the web of the leaf itself, took place, 
according to the present belief, as a mutation or sport. It seems 
pretty well established that White Burley originated on the farm of 
Mr. George Webb near the village of Higginsport, Brown Co., Ohio. 
The following account of the origin of the new white tobacco, as 
it was called, written in 1875 by Mr. A. F. Ellis, who was a neighbor 
of Mr. Webb at the time, is quoted from the Western Tobacco 
Journal: 
White Burley tobacco first made its appearance in the year 1864, near the village of 
Higginsport, Brown County, Ohio. In the spring of that year one George Webb pro- 
cured from G. W. Barkley, of Bracken County, Ky., a small portion of tobacco seed 
of the kind then known as Little Burley. He sowed a part of this seed and grew a bed 
of fine-looking plants, but when ready to transplant found among them a few of a 
peculiar white or yellow color and, supposing them to be diseased or dwarfed plants, 
pulled them up and threw them away. 
The next year, being scarce of seed, he sowed the remainder of this old seed and 
again found a portion of the same kind of plants that he had thrown away the year pre- 
vious. This excited the curiosity of Mr. Webb and others, whose attention had been 
called to these strange-looking plants, and they were induced to transplant them, 
raising in all about 1,000 plants, which proved to be healthy and thrifty, and when 
fully ripe were almost of a cream color, making a great contrast with other tobacco. 
The result of this experience created quite a sensation throughout the neighborhood 
and many growers came from every direction to see what they called a freak of nature. 
The tobacco cured a bright yellow or cream color, but was adjudged bitter to the taste. 
Some concluded that although the tobacco colored well and produced the pounds, on 
account of its bitter taste it would not be safe to plant any large portion of the next 
crop of this kind of tobacco, although considerable seed had been saved. 
The plant beds that were sown of this seed in the year 1866 were found to contain 
a much larger portion of white plants than green ones, and a sufficient quantity were 
transplanted to produce 20,000 pounds of cured tobacco. Two hogsheads of this pro- 
duction were shipped to the Cincinnati market and sold ata high price. The pur- 
chaser shipped the same to the St. Louis Fair of 1867 and, after being awarded the 
first and second premuims for cutting leaf, sold it for $58 per hundred. 
The remainder of this kind of tobacco was purchased by the firm of which I was a 
member, and entered at the Cincinnati Annual Tobacco Fair of the same year to 
compete for the best 10 hogsheads of any class, and awarded the third premium, and 
was afterwards sold for $34 per hundred. 
The record thus made at the several tobacco fairs of 1867 induced many of the 
enterprising planters of Brown County, Ohio, and Bracken County, Ky., to plant 
largely of this kind of tobacco, and its culture has been gradually increasing throughout 
the entire district used for producing cutting tobacco until the present time, when it 
would be difficult to find any person in this large tobacco region so ignorant of his 
pecuniary interest as to plant any other kind. 
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