46 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Jan,, 1H 
Of cigar tobaccos, under Federation, we should have a monopoly, ant 
growing of such should be one of our most profitable industries. 7 
We have the climate and soil in North Queensland that is common W) 
best cigar-growing countries of the world. The cigar-manufacturing indi 
is not large in this colony because it is handicapped by an excessive excise! 
also because there is very little strictly cigar tobacco grown; but we cal 
some extent overcome the former when we get a plentiful supply of desi! 
tobacco. North Queensland can grow cigar-wrappers of superior quality, 
when the doors of the sister colonies are open to us they will offer a mail: 
for all that we can grow for several years to come, as their cigar-manufactule 
interests are large, and they import practically all of their stocks. @4 
farmers who are within the proper districts for growing these tobatt 
and are disposed to do so, are fortunate, in view of the fact ® 
good cigar-wrappers always fetch a good price, and the question of 
of production is not so serious a one. ‘They have the world for a market! 
the tobacco will stand the expense of shipping. I would especially recomml 
to the small farmers of our Northern country to grow two or three acres oF! 
tobacco every year. This can be done without seriously hindering the ” 
work of the farm, and will be so much extra money that they would! 
otherwise have. 
COFFEE IN PORTO RICO. 
AmertrcA’s new possession, Porto Rico, produced, in 1898, 260,000 bags, or; ® 
33,800,000 1b. The total coffee crop of the world last year amounted to 806) 
tons, of which the United States consumed, say, 322,660 tons. It will 
Sup eat (observes the American Grocer) that the total production of our ™ 
coffee-growing State—Porto Rico—being only about 5 of 1 per cent. of © 
consumption, will not seriously disturb our markets this year. | 
FLORIDA-GROWN TOBACCO. 
TuE Southern Tobacco Journal, of Winston, N.C., says :— 
Some wonderful things are being accomplished in Florida in tobatt 
raising. One of these is the production of plants of such gigantic size t 
stranger from Connecticut might well imagine, on arriving at one 0 
plantations, that he was in Brobdignag. 
Conceive, if you can, of fields of “Sumatra Wrappers” in which the pi 
tower far above the head of a man on horseback. 
Tt was noticed some time ago that plants which happened to be in the si 
of trees attained a superior development. Fi 
The suggestion was taken up by a New York company in Gadsden coum’ 
Fla., which built an arbour of laths 9 feet high and covering 1 acre. Benet 
this, Sumatra tobacco was planted, and the result was astonishing. xpe 
declared that the island of Sumatra had never yielded a finer type of wrap 
leaf. Here was a great discovery. Florida planters are now growing m#™% 
hundreds of acres of tobacco under arbours. 4 
The pretty part of this business is this wrapper sells easily at from 2? 
dollars to 8 dollars per lb. 
