The morning call., 1893-08-10
SHALL WE GROW TOBACCO !?

of tobacco-raising in this State. It was
stated that in Santa Clara County fair
tobacco can be grown at cost of about
$50 an acre, and that the crop would ave-
rage 1000 pounds an acre worth % cents a
pound, thus yielding a profit of 5000 an
acre TO the grower; more than he could
make in an average of years by raising
fruit. Ranchers were urged to cultivate
the tobacco plant.
There is probably some exaggeration in
the figures. A thousand pounds OF mer-
charitable tobacco free of stalks is large
yield. And there are many kinds of to-
bacco which vary In value. The Connect
cut and Ohio product will not compare
with the Virginia and Kentucky leaf. and
the Canadian tobacco is a still lower grade
and is unstable out of tho province. The
really fine tobacco which is used by chew
ers and pipe-smOkers is only made at Rich
mond, where the art of sweetenng the
leaf with liquorice has been brought to
high perfection. The tobacco of Connect
cut, which IS also raised in small Quanti-
ties in other Northern States. is consumed
in the factories which make cheap cigars,
worth at wholesale about 50 thousand.
We used to make a good many of these
cigars in this State. OF late years from
various causes the production has fallen
| off. though the home market is still mainly
supplied by home production. When the
industry was active, eight or ten years
ago. we imported the leaf from New York
or Connecticut and sold the finished prod
net as far east as Texas.
II there be a principle 10 agriculture
which ought 10 be understood ii is that
no farmer can afford to grow tobacco who
cannot afford to fertilize his land. In The
seventeenth century two of the colonies
grew little else but tobacco. These were
Virginia and Maryland. 1t was almost
their only export. the support Of their
govern ments, their sole currency. Just
as in this State forty years ago the value
of commodities was reckoned by the
ounce of gold. so in Williamsburg and
jamestown. Va, and throughout Mary
land from 1920 to 100 merchandise was
appraised at so many pounds Of tobacco.
A dinner or a bed cost SO many pounds
a malefa tor was sentenced to pay a fine
in tobacco. The consequence Of this ex-
tensive cultivation of the tobacco-plant
was the exhaustion of the most fertile
valleys of Virginia-an exhaustion from
which they have not yet recovered. In
that colony the impoverished planters
abandoned their plantations and migrated
across the mountains to settle the Shenan-
doah Valley and East Tennessee and
Kentucky, taking care. in their new
homes. to devote a larger portion of their
soil to raising food products than was
allowed for the tobacco field. In Mary
land at one time tobacco-rasing was
abandoned and wheat planting substi-
tuted.
Tobacco, however. was a crop which
was easily raised with slave labor. and
after the establishment of independence,
it again became the staple crop of all the
border States. 1t is not too much to say
that it has kept them poor ever since. The
tobacco plant draws the nitrogen out Of
the soil. and in our day each crop leaves
The field on which it was grown absolutely
dead. incapable of growing tobacco or any
thing else. The VirgiDians and Kentuck-
ians repair the damage by the use of arti-
fetal manures, specially manufactured to
meet the case. but the manure costs nearly
as much as the crop is worth. When the
tobacco-p planter sells his crop and puts the
money in his pocket, and buys the fertl-
izer required for next year, he has nothing
but little small change left. There is no
finer country in the world than the river
bottoms of Virginia; they are a perfect
paradise; but the soil has been SO ruined
by the alienation of exhaustive tobacco
crops and the artificial stimulus of chem
ical manures that a plantation will not
sell at any price.
On the opposition side of the tobacco
growing proposal ion it may be argued that
a more scientific treatment of the soil may
arrest impoverishment. Wheat, if grown
steadily, eXhausts the richest soil in few
years, and yet the use of proper fertilizers
enables the English wheat-grOwer to pro-
duce An average of about twenty-eight
bushels to the acre. If tobacco will pay
profit Of one-half of $500 an acre the cos,
Of fertiliZing would not eat up the profit