EARLY HISTORY OF THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY. ae 
the close of the Revolutionary War the pioneering movement to the 
country beyond the Alleghenies into what is now Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, and southern and eastern Ohio went on at an increased rate. 
Many of these frontiersmen were from the tobacco-producing sec- 
tions of Virginia and Maryland and it was quite natural that they 
should try tobacco growing in the new settlements. As in Virginia, 
the soil and other natural conditions of much of this new country 
were suitable for the production of tobacco. Marketing facilities 
were available by means of the numerous navigable rivers connect- 
ing with the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and down these to New 
Orleans and thence to the markets of Europe on nearly as favorable 
a basis as that enjoyed by Virginia and Maryland. 
As the population of these States grew, so did the production of 
tobacco, and by 1840 we find Kentucky producing much more than 
Maryland, and ranking second only to Virginia until, with the favoring 
influence of the Civil War, which entirely prostrated production in 
Virginia, she passed into first place, a position which she continues 
easily to hold by a big margin. 
In this period also the production of tobacco was carried over into 
‘Missouri on an extensive commercial scale. The crop in that State 
amounted in 1860 to 25,086,196 pounds and in 1876 its largest crop 
was produced, amounting to 43,245,000 pounds, causing it to rank 
in production for that year ahead of the other important producing 
States, Tennessee, Ohio, Maryland, and North Carolina, and inferior 
only to Kentucky and Virginia. Missouri’s product has recently 
fallen off markedly in quantity, however, and she is now no longer 
to be reckoned among the important tobacco-growing States. 
BEGINNINGS OF THE CIGAR-TOBACCO INDUSTRY. 
During the colonial period the production of distinctive cigar 
types of tobacco was not recognized, and there had been no impor- 
tant commercial development of tobacco growing in any of the now 
important cigar-tobacco producing sections of our country. 
During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the manufac- 
ture of cigars had its infant beginnings as a household industry in . 
some of the Connecticut Valley country towns. The industry grew © 
very slowly at first and correspondingly slow progress was made in 
the growing of cigar leaf, which likewise had its beginnings in the Con- 
necticut Valley in the section between Hartford, Conn., and Spring- 
field, Mass. : 
Other centers of development for the production of the cigar or 
seed-leaf types of tobacco almost coeval with that of the Connecticut 
Valley were the present area in Lancaster and York Counties, Pa.; 
the Gadsden County, Fla., area; the Miami Valley, Ohio, area; and 
45801°—Bul. 244—12——2 
