The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1905-10-10

way as Oh City and Bradford, In Penn
sylvania. Durham is a thriving and
progressive city, prospecting through
the manufacture of smoking tobacco.
Durham tobacco-the bright.colored
gold-leafed smoking product is
known the country over wherever a
pipe is lit or the cigarette fend
thriyes and pursues his flnger.color.
ing habit. Durham lives on the nick.
les that go to the tobacco store. Dur.
ham is so thoroughly tobacco town
that big cotton factory devotes its
entire energy TO making cotton sacks
to pack tobacco in. Everything at
Durham Is bright tobacco. The farm.
ers raise tobacco, the merchants care
for the tobacco raiser and for the to-
bacco manufacturer. The Durham
millionaire, who gets his name on the
list Of the worlds financial kings, is
of course tobacco man.
Tobacco is the magic word In that
section of North Carolina. Not SO
many years ago It was the practice
of the enthusinastic people to have a
small boy with basket OF envelopes
containing samples of bright-leafed
tobacco climb on the Seaboard Air
Line trains as they approached the
tobacco belt. and each passenger went
on his way with sample of the best
smoking tobacco on earth. But It is
not necessary to give away North Car.
DINA gold-leafed tobacco now. The
men who have the nickles are perfect.
ly willing to give up their money to
buy 1t
Over at Winston-Salem, quaint old
town, which is one town made over
into two, Is another famous tobacco
center. There plug tobacco is made,
and there the multi.millionaire is a
plug tobacco man. The people work
in the tobacco factories, and the town
of $4,000 inhabitants, turns out annual.
ly SS,000,000 worth of goods. To do
this 5000 hands are employed. This
Is not quite up to the record at Dur.
ham, where the annual product, worth
$7.000,000. is made by $500 hands, in
a town of 1000 people.
Kentucky, North Carolina and Viz.
ginia raise much more tobacco than
all the rest of the United States com.
bined, nevertheless the crop is of COM
mercial Importance in several other
States. 1t will grow successfully and
with profit In half the States of the
Union. The States which have the
largest average yield to the acre is
Vermont, with 1900 pounds, and New
Hampshire is second. The State aver.
age TO the acre in Connecticut and
Massachusetts Is above 1,40O pounds.
Then the price of the New England
product is from IL to Is cents per
pound. In North Carolina the
average yield is only 627 pounds to
the acre, and the price is but G cents
a pound. Florida gets 30 cents a
pound for tobacco. but raises it under
canvas covering, practice that is
followed to some extent in Connect.
cut. Pennsylvania makes tobacco
crop worth s1,5OO,000 year, and
ranks eighth among the tobacco grow.
ing Sates. Pennsylvania makes an
average of LAG pounds of tobacco to
the acre, and it sells for cents a
pound. That makes an acre OF Penn.
syivania tobacco worth about three.
times as much as an acre of tobacco
in North Carolina. Yet North Caro-
lima raises six times as much tobac
co as Pennsylvania, and gives her
product reputation everywhere that
tobacco is used. North Carolina men
learned long ago to send their tobac
co to market in finished condition
and In the most attractive form, sc
what the farmer gets 100000 or 8,
100000 for, the manufacturer works
up into such shape that the product
before it leaves the State, has grown
to a valuation three times. as great.
And the nickels have done it.
BION H. BUTLER,
Southern Pines, n. c.