Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1882-06-16

Can it be Grown HereG
BY tobacco alone whole counties have been
made rich in North Carolina and Virginia 1t
is treacherous crop, to be sure. Many far
mer has been impoverished by it while he
thought himself growing rich. It's demands
upon the lime and potash of the soil are heav-
Ter than those made by any other crop. Near
Danville, Va, hundreds of farms may be seen
from whose soils the last element of fertility
has been sucked up by the tobacco plant till
the whole region wears the melancholy air of
desert, seeming hardly fertile enough for
crop of sorrel or mullen stalks. This ruin
Gus system of farming can scarcely be Won
dered at for tobacco is crop which some-
times pays profit of $500 or $500 to the
acre, apd what farmer would not risk the ruin
of his soil and himself to grasp at such
gain. There is one kind of tobacco how
ever, which, by a most happy collision be-
tween mans taste and natures unkindness, is
still an extremely profitable crop in certain
counties of North Carolina and Virginia. The
bright yellow tobacco so much priced in pipe
or cigarette is produced almost wholly in these
two states, and the poorer the soil the better
its quality. Through this benefcent paradox
thousands of acres in Warren, Greenville, Or
ange, Person, Caswel Alamance, Rocking
ham, Wayne, Lenor, and two or three other
counties in North Carolina and Halifax and
Pittsylvana in Virginia, have been redeemed
from sterile waste and made, if not to bios
som like the rose, at least to become the seat
of a highly profitable agriculture. Grown on
fairly rich soil and allowed to mature on the
stalk, tobacco reaches the factory as a dark.
brown or nearly black leaf, strong in nicotine
and rank to the taste and smell. To produce
bright tobacco the plant is cut early, and
the leaves are cured by a quick drying heat
which drives out the sap and leaves them
rich yellow color
Yellow tobacco is worth from $50 to 800
per hundred, and for some fancy lots as high
as So. so pound is paid. In sale at Lynch.
burg of 10, 765 pounds raised on a single farm
in Madison county, the average price was $45
per hundred, the highest price being 90 cents
per pound. The profits of tobacco farming
are often very large. A woman who rented
two and One-half acres near Asheville and
cultivated it with her own hands, sold her
crop for $780, A tenant of Mr. j. NJ. Smith,
in Madison county, raised S39 pounds on an
acre and half and got $345.9 "a for it; aDoth.
er on four and a quarter acres raised 9, $50
pounds, and sold it for $0S5.72. In the dis
trict about Asheville the average cost of rails
ing the crop of 1880 was from SIG to $l7 per
hundred, aud 80 cents pound was paid for
many lots, On 50acre rented farms near
Marshall, Madison county, tenants averaged
$2l2 per acre One farmer, planting as late
as the Doth of June, raised $50 pounds to the
acre, which, at $50 per hundred, brought him
1925 for every acre cultivated. DR.. Killebrew.
compiler of the tobacco crop statistics for the
census report, puts the value of the total crop
of North Carolina, including all grades, vel
low and dark, at $l4. 10 per hundred the val.
ne per acre at $GG. 81, the cost per hundred
at 80, SO, and the profit per hundred at 81. n.
According to DIR. Gideon e. Moore's analysis,
medium North Carolina yellow tobacco con
tains 4.58 per cent of nicotine and the high
1aah Vak 1
cent in the dark Virginia tobacco grown on
heavily-manured soil Outside the region
where the yellow leaf is grown tobacco can
be made profitable crop only by constant
and generous fertilization. The lime and pot
ash must be restored to the soil, and if these
and other required elements arc abundantly
supplied, there is scarcely any limit to the
possible yield. The farmers of Cheshire and
Sullivan counties, N. H., raised in 1879 an ay
orage of $500 worth of ''New England
seed-leaf" to the acre 1t cost them $40 per
hundred to raise their crop, and they got but
$l2 for it-a profit of 50 per hundred or
SAB to the acre. These figures show the
character of their tobacco farming In local
tiles more favorable to the growth of the
plant and producing higher priced variety,
the same high cultivation would yield i'm
mense returns. With rational cultivation, to-
bacco is one of the most profitable crops in
the world It is a very important item in our
list of exports, the shipments of the fiscal
year 1880 amounting to $l8, 342, 273, and for
the preceding year to $2S, 200, 900.
1t has been suggested to us that our tobacco
growers might make good thing by cultivat-
ing the high-priced yellow tobacco like that
raised in North Carolina and Virginia and de-
seribed above by correspondent of the New
York Times. We are inclined to believe that
the peculiar color and quality of this tobacco
are due as much to the soil and climate as to
the method of curing. We have seen thin,
bright, yellowish or light cinnamon-colored
leaf that was grown here and cured by the u.s.
ual process; but buyers professed to value
higher another shade of color.
Although we plead guilty to having once
attempted tobacco culture ourselves, we are
glad to be able to say that at present the sub
ject interests, as cultivators of the weed, but
few Vermont farmers; and we hope the num-
Der will never be increased. There are now
only about half-a-dozen towns in the state
where as much as half an acre of tobacco il
grown. 1t has never been cultivated in Yer
mont to any extent, except in a few towns in
this county. The state produced in 1862 &C.
eording to the census of 1870, ~, $50 pounds
of tobacco, all but IL pounds of which was
grown in Windham county. It's culture in
this state was at its height about ten years
ago, when it is probable that more than three
times the amount reported for the state in the
census of 1870 was raised in this county. A