Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1889-07-09
WHITE TOBACCO PLANTS.
THEY APPEARED MYsTeRlousl v AMI
BROUGHT A FORTUNE.

story al the Origin of the white Bur
ley" Tobacco, Which Has Almost Drive,
ot the Dark Variety-T.e Singular
Good Fortune of Capt. Colt.
Kentucky raises 800, 600, 900 pounds of To
oacco every year, half of the crop of tn,
United States Most of il is marketed iy
this CITY About a dozen long leaves are tiec
into what Is called 'hand" and tbes,
han Is are compressed in hogsheads VARYING
troln doO to 1900 pounds in weight Ter
years ago all this tobacco was of a DARK
Drown, or black color Now the greater DOR
tion OF IT Is bright yellow There has beer
snnilar change In color at Cincinnati anC
Other important markets The dark coIored
article sells at from three TO seven cents q
pound the light from ten to twenty cents a
pound. The latter is sweet: the former i,
strong and bitter. 1t is curious story how
the tobacco crop of the United States came
TO change its color
THE PLANT IN THE FIELD CORNER.
Brown. county, O., lies opposite Mason
county, KY, and has long been famous for
Tobacco growing. Many years ago there re-
sidei IN that county an industrious and intel.
ligcnt German farmer, Capt August Cott.
Capt. Cott raised tobacco 1t all then was
dark and strong and caused Inflammation i'm
the mouths of those who chewed it The
sweet tobacco was brought from Cuba. and
could not he grown anywhere i'm the United
States. Its seed planted in our soil produced
the strong tobacco peculiar to this country.
There was one kind here little better than
the other. 1t was of q reddish color and was
called Red Burley How it got the name
"Burley" no one knows.
In lS6? Capt. Cott had field of tobacco
just behind his house. One day early in the
autumn, when the plants had attained a
height of foot or more, Mrs. Cott remarked
10 her husband that she had seen a very ne
culiar tobacco plant in the corner of the field
II was like none she had ever seen before
All others, when growing, were green, but
this was white Capt Cott said he would
look at 1t. Accompanied by his wife he went
TO tile field and examined the peculiar plant
II was indeed white, as she had said, and un-
like any other tobacco. Capt Cott gave his
wor lmen orders to take care of it and allow
it to run TO seed
To raise tobacco necessitates two processes
of anting. The seed is sown in a small bed
just like one for asparagus or lettuce. In a
short time tiny plants, hundreds of them to
every square foot, grow up. These plants
are drawn out by the roots, Taken to a field
prepared for that purpose, they are set, one
In each, in little hillocks a foot and a half
apart One man punches hole in a hillock
with stick another inserts the roots of the
plant and presses the dirt around them This
plant takes second growth and sends up a
stou5 stalk, with fifteen or sixteen branching
leaves, each of them often two feet long and
a foot broad This is the tobacco for com
merce and use. Before it attains maturity
the farmer cuts off the top of the stalk. Ii
makes the leaves grow broader If the top is
n,- cut off it shoots up to height of five or
SIX feet, blossoms, and produces handful of
seed This is called allowing plant TO run
to seed
Capt Cott examined the white plant many
times while it was growing to maturity. In
the autumn it blossomed Just as any other to-
bacco would when left alone, and after ripen-
ing Capt. Cott carefully gathered the handful
OF seed it produced. The plant was cut and
huns away by itself in the barn to dry.
When 1t had undergone the latter process it
turned TO bright yellow color and contrasted
remarkably in appearance with the other to-
bacco. Capt. Cott chewed piece. 1t was
sweet and left an unusually pleasant taste in
his mouth. He called in a number of his
nelghbors, all old tobacco growers, to ex-
amire the plant and see what they thought of
1t. They agreed with him that it was far
superior to any other tobacco they had ever
seen, but they argued that the plant was
merely freak of nature The seed from it
would produce tobacco of the familiar dark
color and strong taste. The captain was in
cllne1 to that belief too, but he said he would
sow the seed and see