The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-01-28
Will it Pay.

| of craze over tobacco culture and the
profits likely TO flow from its growth in
South Carolina. Any kind of farming
can be made to appear profitable on
paper a grain of wheat on good land
will stool and send up five to ten stalks
with good heads, each containing 20 to
so grains. On paper each grain by his
test should give from 100 to $50 grains,
or each bushcl showed should yield 100
to $50 bushels. Cut, thresh and put the
measure to it and the yield falls to 10 or
Is bushels. An acre of corn, run of
three by four feet at one hundred ears to
the bushel, should yield about thirty
seven bushels, with one ear to the stalk,
but when shucked and measured, the
bushels are, not there, unless the land be
extraordinarily good, and the distance
lessened. 1t is said figures won't lie, but
in farming they can cut lie the prince of
liars. Admitting this, still we are salts
fed tobacco can be grown profitably in
this State, certainly in the upper counties,
if its culture and curing were properly
understood. To prove this needs no
experiment, as our farmers, who use it,
generally plant small patches and realize
from them at the rate of one to two
thousand pounds per acre. This is what
is known as common tobacco, grown ON
highly manured spots, where the stalks
average ten to twelve leaves over tNo
feet long and eighteen inches wide. Tie
fine, light tobacco is grown on thin, gray
land, fertiized, and Lhc yield in quantity
is much less, but the price more than
makes up the loss in pounds.
For the purpose of testing the prof 5
of tobacco growing and the adaptation of
our soil aud climate TO its culture, the
Agricultural Board of the State has set
apart $500 to be appropriated as fol.
lows: Fifty dollars to be given to one
man selected in each County of the
State to make the experiment, and a
prize of 500 to be given to the
man who attains the most satisfactory
results. In our opinion this is wasting
money on what the Board calls an exper
iment where no experiment is needed,
and limiting the competition to 81 men,
when it should embrace all who desire
to compete. If The Board had offered a
premium in each County of the State to
the man who raised the largest number
of pounds of tobacco on one acre, not
less than pounds; another pre-.
MUM to the farmer who raised the finest
grade of toba co in his County on one
acre, the yield to be not less than
pounds; and another premium to the
farmer who planted the largest number
of acres in tobacco in each County, the
average per acre to be not less than
pounds, the competition would
have been general and the experiment,
if such be needed, would have shown the
probable yield per acre, the grade of
tobacco and the result OF general crop
of several acres. Better even than this
would have been the buying and distrib-
uting among our people of pamphlets,
written and published by successful
growers of the weed in Virginia and
North Carolina, giving full Instructions
as to plant beds, the preparation of the
soil Tor the crop, and the cultivation,
cutting and curing tobacco in quantities.
Our people need no experiments to prove
tobacco will grow here pro6taby, but
they need information as to many things
connected with its growth and curing.
There are several reasons why tobacco
has not been grown as a crop in this
County since the war, most of which
have ceased TO exist:
1st. The high price of cotton after the
war diverted our labor into the channel
of cotton growing and there it has re-
maiued, though the price of cotton now
hardly pays for its cost Of production.
I'd. After the war our people did not
have sufficient capital to build such
houses as are required for the curing OF
tobacco as crop, nor did they know how
to cure properly and pack down large
quantities.
Sd. There was no home market for the
sale of leave tobacco; in fact no market
in the State, and our people were not
sufficiently informed as to the p:.::ces and
shipment of leaf tobacco. There Vas so
little confidence in the country that far
mers marketing their produce did so OH
the plan here is the article, hand me the
money for it.
4lh. The revenue laws were such, and
were enforced by such irresponsible,
overbearing officials ~ so called, that
people were afraid to grow or handle leaf
tobacco, inasmuch that but few grew
tobacco for Lame use.
This is all changed and what we now
want is to encourage the growth OF to-
bacco as crop and not to experiment
over its growth. In the early settlement
of the up-country tobacco was an article
of commerce. 1t was grown largely and
rolled in hogshead to Hamburg and
Charleston by attaching shafts TO pihs
drove in each end of the hogshead, The
price was then lower than now. With
the present improved information and
cheapness of shipment its growth must
prove profitable, and when once introduc-
ed and cultivated as crop, the volume
of our broken lands about Walhalla will
be enhanced from five to ten fold. Again,
when our people once begin to grow it
for market, IL market will open in the
County, for when the crop for sale is
sufficiently large to justify licensed
dealer. such house would soon open in
one of several towns in the County