The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1885-10-28
AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.
THE TOBACCO EXPERIMENT.
Precautions to be Taken to Make It SUI
Cessful.

Continent it grows wherever planted
nom Canada to Patagonia, but with
variations of types due to soil, climate
and exposure. In the United States
we have almost endless varieties of the
same distinct plant. Ohio tobacco
resembles Maryland, but the one is
easily distinguished from the other,
and both have their chief sale in Eu-
rope. The dark tobaccos of Virginia
arc different from those of Kentucky,
and the tobacco of Tennessee differs
from both. Even in the yellow tobac
co of Virginia and North Carolina dis
tinct varieties with distinct names
exist, and in western North Carolina
the tobacco varies in different eouties,
although originally grown from the
same seed.
1t is impossible, therefore, to predict
what the South Carolina tobacco of the
future will be, and in what material
respects variation from the parent
type will be produced in the different
localities of tho State. Like all plant
other life on u globe, tobacco, even
in it's assisted struggle for existence,
will, in its evolution to the most at
tainable perfect species, accommodate
itself to the influence of the soil upon
which it feeds and the air which it
feeds, and it can only survive as a per-
manent type of the plant family to
whichit belongs, subject to these con-
tons. Thus the tobacco of the Wins
ton district of North Carolina is rich
in flavor and substance and of an
CT, ge and somewhat reddish color,
while that of Western North Carolina
is thinner and n brighter yellow, and
lacks the excellence of flavor of the
former. Perhaps the tobacco of the
Piedmont Of South Carolina will more
nearly resemble the former than the
latter.
/ trust sincerely that your commits
sioners of agriculture will place at the
disposal of the farmers carefully pre-
pared instructions as to the sorts of to-
bacco best adapted to the several divis-
ions of soil which characterize the
State from the sea to the mountains.
1t were o loss of precious time and of
money for your people to embark in
blind experiments with seed and con-
ditiops unsuitable to, their several lacal-
tiles. Given suitable soil and climate
the acquisitiohsof the highest attaina-
BILE type of tobacco may be greatly
hastend and assisted at the start by a
judicious selection of seed grown on
similar soil elsewhere. With the same
49, "tOSt oNio \ II biS cSlSStlOh VI SCCu
from your home grown plant as was
exercised by your island planters in
the progressive creation of sea island
cotton, a type Of tobacco will be devel-
.pped better suited to the soils and eli
mates of South Carolina than one
grown from continuous importation
Of seed from Virginia and elsewhere.
Tobacco nowadays, If we except the
sun-cured wrappers of Virginia north
of the James, and the cigar leaf of
other States, must be cured in barns,
heated by smoke-tight flues. This in
wolves a large expenditure of fuel, the
supply of which is a consideration of
prime economy and importance.
It Is an error generally received that
the soil of any part Of South Carolina
resemble that of the celebrated VueHa
Abjo of Cuba, Of the Valley of the
Connecticut, or Of Lancaster county,
Pa. The Cuban, the Connecticut and
the Pennsylvania soils are similar, the
formation being t,1asSic, and of which
formation / can discover no trace any
where in South Carolina. Doubtless
the terraces of your river lands will
produce good cigar tobacco from
Havana seed. Certainly, if it can be
ascertained that these soils resemble
the cigar leaf soils of Gadsden county,
Florida, which in the past produced
cigar leaf almost in excellence to that
of Havana. The census of 1880 gives
the profit per acre from tobacco grown
ON Florida soil as the largest in the
United States. There is far less differ
ence between the climates of South
between the climates of South Caro-
lima and of Florida than there is be-
tween Connecticut and Cuba.
AS in everything else, so is it in
agriculture dangerous to generalize
isolated results. Individual
farmers in North Carolina growing
yellow tobacco have realized 5000 and
more per acre, yet the average price
for which the crop of this State sold i'm
the season just closed was not more
than thirteen and o half cents a pound.
AT these figures an average of five
hundred pounds to the acre for the
whole State to be about $22.50 net.
1T is not to discourage the farmers of
South Carolina that | give these de-
ductions from facts. IL is better for
them to start their experimental crops
of tobacco on the basis of moderately
estimated profits than upon greatly eX-
aggerated expectations derived from
exceptional and rare instances of enor
nous returns. 1t is given only to a
few very skilled and painstaking farm
airs to achieve such remuneratiye re-
suits as are quoted by newspaper
writers as if they were the general
rule. The great majority of those who
till the soil with us in the South are
but indifferent c%ultivators, or else their
efforts are crippled by inadequate CAP
ital. However, if the men who take
hold of tobacco in South Carolina can,
with the altered conditions oflabor, do
for this plant what their forefathers did
for rice and sea island cotton, then as
suredly will South Carolina become a
great tobacco State, but they have
everything to learn, and the first steps
towards success must be taken in q
spirit of patient investigation. Science
CANNOT altogether supply the place of
experience. IL can, at best, only indi-
cate the short cuts by which this richly