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

9E1St5SN rettes by the millions day
and ships out a trainload Of chewing and
smoking tobacco every twenty four hours. 1t
makes more plug tobacco than any other town
in the country, and it pays tobacco taxes to the
amount Of almost So, 100000 per annum. Just
now the factories are running at their full to
supply the extraordinary demands on account
of the war, and the same is true of every to-
bacco center in the United States.
But few people realize the extent of our to-
bacco industry. 1t brings in to the farmers
more actual cash than i've get from our gold
mines. The crop yields them something like
S1OO,OOO,OOO year, and the taxes upon it
drop into the United States Treasury more
than $4,000 an hour, day and night, year in
and wear out. The industry employs about
100000 hands 1t pays out in wages million
dollars day, and the value of the product in
Guiding the manufactures thereof, is more than
S4OO,O0O,O00 per year.
Our total production of tobacco annually
amounts to more than OO0,OOO,O00 pounds.
we make ellOuSH W give tCh Pouiino W >'~iV
man. woman and child in the United States.
We produce about two-thirds of all the tobacco
used bv mankind Our chief competitors are
found in the countries of Europe Russia
crows one-fourth or one-ffth as much as we
do. and the product of Austria-Hungary and
Germany in normal times is in the heIghbor-
hood of 100000 pounds, which is far less than
the amount they consume. 1t seems strange to
speak of tobacco as an element of warfare, but
it appears to be necessary to the men in the
trenches. and those who have contracted the
habit of using it lose their nerve when it is not
supplied Our exports have greatly increased
since the war in Europe began and this in
crease will be still greater now that we are
sending our own troops to the front.
AS it is now Our exports of tobacco are more
than four hundred thousand pounds every year,
and this includes cigars and cigarettes valued
at millions of dollars. We are now making
eight billion cigars every twelve months, and
our cigarette output is three times as many.
The cigars which the United States makes in
one year, if laid out end to end would reach
several times around the world on the line of
the equator, and the cigarettes are so many
that if they were joined they would make a
line of small smokes four times as long as the
distance between the earth and the moon Our
consumption of cigars is SO great that we burn
I'D more than twenty-one million day. We
smoke nine hundred thousand cigars every
hour, more than fifteen thousand minute, and
over two hundred and fifty second. AS to
cigarettes, the United States is now using
something like sixty million day. This means
about two and half million per hour, more
than forty thousand minute, and about seven
hundred every time the watch ticks from Janu-
ary to December year in and year out.
The internal revenue receipts from tobacco
would build feet of thirty-ive ocean grey
hounds each as big as the Lusitania to carry
our food supply to the allies, or it would build
and equip ten big battleships to aid us in de-
stroying the fleet of the Germans.
This will give you some idea of the extent
of the tobacco industry reduced to brass tacks
1t has many ramiications and its products are
equally surprising | do not know lust how
many tons of plug tobacco the United States
now consumes, but there is one factory here
which covers several acres and is devoted to
nothing but plug At the time of my visit at
least five hundred employees were operating
machines making the square and oblong pack
ages sold in the stores, and others were stand
ing at tables twisting out the black snal<e-like
ropes of chewing tobacco called twist" The
weed has to be specially treated in the making
OF plug. 1t is saturated with licorice and sugar
and favored to taste.
You may think that the custom of snuffing
is dying out. The statistics show that we are
still PRODUCING about thirt.r