The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-04-13
SNUFF HABIT SPREADS.
Increase in the Number of Users of II

Increase in, the Number of Users of the
 Brown Powder.
 It costs tho great American public
 something like seven million dollars an
 nuaily to square its snuff bill. More
 than sixteen million pounds of this ar
 ticle are used each year in this country.
 And we are not prominent as a race of
 snuff users, either.
 The figures are taken,frorn the inter
 nal revenue reports, So they cannot
 well lie. Taxes are paid annually on
 sixteen million pounds of snuff in this country. At the average price of forty five cents pound. which is a low esti- mate, the nations snuff bill will foot up to more than seven million dollars. And the custom of snuff using is stead fly growing; snufing Is becoming popu-
 lar. ss% 'a4 @:+s@' :.
 Contrary to general opinion, snuff using is not confined to, or even excep- tionally prevalent among, the foreign element. According to one man who
 has made snuff in Chicago for half a Lifetime, it is the native born American of the southern states who bays most of the snuff sold in this country. The
 foreign born snuff user is not so nunder- ous, nor does his weakness for the stinn- uIant cost him so much as 1t does the southerner of the larger cities
 The great bulk of snuff manufactur- ing, as we'll as consuming, is done in the south. As the snuff Is made almost
 exclusively from the leaf grown in that section, it is a mattertof economy to have the factories there. The snuff made In this country is manufactured principally from Virginia, Tennessee or Kentucky leaf tobacco. The best is made from the product of the Tennes- see or Kentucky tobacco fields. The quality of the tobacco used compares favorably with that put into the best plug tobaccos. The leaf used is partic-
 ularly ripe, as unripe leaf will spoil af- ter making, v. /. Aside from the actual tobacco, the other ingredients used in the compost ton of snuff are of a much finer grade than those used in helping make plug | tobacco. The prices of !. the two are
 nearly the same. Rose oil, oil of rose Igeraniums claret and honey are used to
 give flavor and aroma to the product
 generally, with tamarinds and St.
 Johns bread ground in if it is to have a fruit flavor.
 The first process in snuff nanufac- ture is the grinding or pulverizing.
 Occasionally a manufacturer ferments his leaf before grinding, but the accep- ted method is to first grind, then fer ment. The grinding is done mostly in what art termed "snuff mulls." These mulls are apothecary mortars on a large scale, with power-run millstones for pestles. The capacity of a null is about one hundred and fifty pounds of leaf tobacco. The tobacco is ground into three grades-fine, medium and
 coarse. The finest is used for the man ufacture of the higher grades of snuff, the Scotch and Maccaboy brands.
 From the grinding room the leaf goes 1 to the fermenting rooms, where it is subjected to fermentation at from nine- ty to one hundred and forty degrees of temperature, according to the degree of fermentation desired. The fermenta-
 ton takes from twenty days to three
 months. In this process the common ground tobacco is transformed, through the process of fermentation, to com
 pact, cohesive mass more akin to lamp-
 black than to tobacco in any form.
 When it is ready for the mixer the snuff is taken from the fermenting