Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1917-09-23

yellow" said the planter 1.-THE farmer cuts
down the stalks and hangs them on sticks
which are stuck in the ground, or he NAV strip
on the leaves and string them on wires. He
then carries them to the tobacco barn To he
cured or dried. The barn is closed house or
hut with set of fues in it SO that il can he
heated and kept at just the right temperature
until the tobacco is cured. This requires DAYS
and nights of firing, and the tobacco must be
watched during that time. At the end the
moisture has been dried out The leaves have
turned yellow and they are ready to be pre-
pared tor the market. They are graded ac-
cording to the character of the leaves and then
tied together into bundles of half dozen or
more each, in which shape they are taken to the
auctions and sold"
Many OF the tobacco ce11ters have tfIcfr aur-
ton rooms. There is one here at Winston
Salem and another at Danviile, Va, which has
the largest loose-leaf bright tobacco market of
the world. Buyers from all sections come to
these markets, and at the height of the season
there are men at Danville from every country
in Europe. The market handles fifty million
pounds and upward year, and thousands of
hogsheads are shipped direct from there to the
manufacturers abroad
| have visited the warehouses at Danyi1le
where these auction sales are held There are
eleven of them, and each covers several acres.
The tobacco, cured as I have described, is
brought in by the farmers and laid ia piles upon
the floor. The piles are in long rows and each
pile is as big around as wash tub. It repre-
sents one mans crop, and Is marked with
card bearing the name of the ownes
Walking about among the piles are scores
of tobacco buyers. They examine the tobacco,
handling the leaves and smelling them. When
the auctoneer comes in he begins at one end
of the room and moves from pile to pile, auc-
tioning off each lot as he goes. He gives the
amount of tobacco represented by the pile and
does not waste time waiting for bids He
auctions off two or three lots per minute After
finishing one row the starts down another, and
SO on until all are disposed Of As soon as a
sale is made it is marked down by book
keeper who follows the auctioneer, and the
farmer can get his cash straight away from
the warehouse which acts as a clearing house
for the buyers.
Tobacco is one of the money crops of the
farmers 1t is sold for cash. and there is no
trouble about payment. This has always been
SO, and it will probably continue as long as
man is addicted to the tobacco-using habit
The first money that came into the south was
from tobacco. 1t came from sales made to
England as far back as 1886, and little later
tobacco passed as money and was used in pay
ment of taxes. Preachers got their salaries in
tobacco and the town officers were paid the
same way. Some of the oldest families of our
country have among their colonial great-grand
mothers women who were brought over from
England to be married to the first settlers
They were landed at Jamestown, Va, when
likely maid brought, it is said, one hundred
pounds of tobacco and upward IN the auction
sale of the girls to the planters From then on
the business grew rapidly. A hundred years
before the Declaration of Independence Eng
land was collecting from the colonies more
than half million dollars annually IN tobacco
duties, and little more than fifty years hter
the crop of Virginia and Maryland was worth
in the neighborhood of two million dollars The
use of tobacco became fashionable in al tha
courts of Europe. 1t spread rapidly to Africa
and Asia, and today there is hardly place on
this big round world where the nasty weed"
is not smoked chewed or snuffed.
FRANK c. CARPENTER.