Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-04
OUR TOBACCO CROP
How It's Size and Value May
Be Increased
BY CAREFUL GROWING
EXPERIMENTS CARRIED ON
ALONG SCIENTIFIC LINES.
Farming at Cost of 81 900 an Acre
Vast Revenues From This
Great Industry.
}Y CAREFUL GROWING

(0OVpr1RnI, 1910, Dy FRANK Carpenter. j
Written for The Evening Star.
/ take off my hat to the Agricultural De-
partment! 1t is the fairy godmother OF
Uncle Sans children. 1t waves it's wand
and ten blades of grass grow where none
would grow before. 1t mods its head and
a wheat crop comes from the Atlas Noun
tains, and covers the dry lands of Texas
and the far west. 1t speaks, and the low
lands of the south are green with rice
fields equal to those of China and Japan.
1t again shakes its rod and the nitrogen of
the air, harnessed to bacteria bred in the
department stables, makes mother earth
produce as she has not produced before.
The Agricultural Department is the great
creative department of the government. 1t
is the department that is doing things, ard
it has done so much since Secretary VIII
son took charge of it that it is now giving
object lessons to every nation on the globe.
A few years ago it was laughed at as a
seed-sending, gopher-farminS organization.
1t is now known as a great scientific lnsu-
tuition, operated for the enrichment OF the
country and the people. 1t has today more
than two thousand scientists, experimenting
here and in other parts of the world; and
about the only restriction of its posi-
bilities lies in the meager appropriations
which Congress gives to carry on its work
L
States to write his own congressman that
the Agricultural Department be treated
literally, in the way of appropriations, for,
in doing SO, he is putting money into his
own pockets and those of Uncle SAM
Our Big Tobacco Crop.
You have already heard how we are
adding to our corn crop. The increase in
it's value within ten years. through care
full seed selection, will give us enough
money to build the Panama canal two or
three times over. Hundreds of millions of
dollars will be added to the south by new
discoveries as to raising cotton, and l now
want to show you some of the wonders dis
covered during the past year along the line
of tobaccos.
Tobacco has been one of our big money
crops since the very beginning of things
The plant was not known until America
was discovered Columbus saw the natives
smoking it during his first voyage, and a
physician who was sent to Mexico by Phil
ip II of Spain brought back the first to-
bacco plants to Europe. About the same
time Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to
Portugal, sent some tobacco seed to kath-
arine de Medici, then Queen of France; and
from him the name Ncotiana was given to
it and from that we get the nicotine as the
poison of tobacco today. 1t was in 1856
that the first Virginia tobacco was taken to
England, and it was in 1872 that John
Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas, be-
came the first civilized tobacco grower and
raised tobacco for export. Shortly after
this the demand became SO great that
tobacco was raised generally in our south
ern colonies. 1t was used as money and
a ship load of girls who were brought over
from England to be married to the first
settlers of Virginia. We're sold there at 100
pounds of tobacco and upwards apiece
From then on the business grew rapidly
A hundred years before the Declaration
of Independence, England was collecting
$780, GOO annually in tobacco duties, and
fta of Mar and md mi
alone, little more than fifty years later,
was worth in the neighborhood of two
million dollars. Tobacco became fashion
able in all the courts of Europe 1t rapid
ly spread to Africa and Asia and today
there is hardly place in the big round
world where it is not more or less used.
An American Monopoly.
Indeed the tobacco business of today is
an American monopoly. We control the
trade of England and the continent, and
our big tobacco trust has its branches in
every part of the world. With its affiliated
companies it has a capital of about $780,
100000 and it is paying dividends upon
that amount. Tobacco manufacturing Is
steadily growing in the United States.
There are more than $4,000 establishments
of this kind in the country, and they en-
ploy $50 600 hands. They use raw material
worth $10O,O0O,O00, and their output has a
value three times or more that amount The
industry Is 1OuHu III every CITY anu The
cigar store in every town, and I might
say cigars, cigarettes and tobacco at every
cross road in the United States.
A Million Acres Of Tobacco.
In order to show what the crop means
to the United States, let me give you a
few figures. We had last year more than
a million acres under cultivation and we
raised in round numbers S16,OO0,0O0 pounds.
or more than ten pounds for every man,
woman and child in the country. This to-
bacco came from dozen different states,
audit was by no means confined to the
south Here are the localities which pro-
duced it. 1 give round numbers only: