34. EXPORT AND MANUFACTURING TOBACCOS. 
Kentucky-Tennessee district at Clarksville, Tenn., and in the Virginia 
dark district at Lynchburg, Va. The predominating requirements for 
snuff are met by the strong, fat, rich grades, but, since other require- 
ments are not exacting, the dle of leat reel | is classed only as com- 
mon to medium. 
The leaf of this type of tobacco used as wrappers for plug, both for 
domestic use and export, is the highest grade produced. The require- 
ments for size, body, fineness, color, etc., are so exacting that the 
proportion to be found in any crop is small. The wrappers are 
picked up here and there, usually in small lots averaging less than 100 
pounds. Because of favorable soil conditions these wrappers are 
obtained mostly in the region subsidiary to Lynchburg in the Virginia 
dark district as a market center and in the Clarksville district in 
Tennessee. These dark wrappers are bought at farm prices ranging 
from $12 to $25 for 100 pounds, but the quantity is so small that it 
raises but slightly the general average price for the type as a whole, 
~ which in the past 10 years has averaged from about $5 to $9 per 100 
pounds, although individual crops sometimes sell at double the general 
average or more. An uncertain and at most a very small proportion 
of this dark-fired type is also used in the manufacture of cheap domestic 
cigars, some of them of the Italian type for the large Italian population 
in and about New York City. Generally speaking, however, this dark- 
fired type of leaf is too strong and rank to be used in the manufacture 
of cigars for domestic use. Its use in this way is really an anomaly 
in the shape of an exception to prove the rule of its unfitness for the 
purpose. 
FOREIGN DEMANDS. 
This dark-fired tobacco is the principal export type. Of the total 
annual production, which aggregates about 220,000,000 pounds, 
some 185,000,000 or 190,000,000 pounds are exported. This type 
thus constitutes more than 50 per cent of our total leaf CxpOrS, 
amounting to more than 300,000,000 pounds annually. 
Great jemitcn Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, and Bel- 
sium, in about the order named from the standpoint ‘of quantity 
taken, are the principal foreign purchasers and consumers of this 
type of leaf. Among these countries, Italy, France, Spain, and 
Austria are known to the tobacco trade as régie purchasers: that is, 
the tobacco industry in these countries is a Government monopoly 
and the tobacco is, therefore, purchased by agents for the account of 
the Government. Italy, France, and Austria conduct the monopoly 
directly under Government auspices, but in the case of Spain the 
monopoly privilege is let out under certain restrictions for a period 
of years to a private concern known as the Compania Arrendataria 
de Tobaccos. The purchases of Austria and Italy in this country 
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