The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1920-07-09
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES

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The Importance of soil chemistry to
the practical farmer is just beginning
| to take hold in the tobacco growing
| areas of the state. The fields that
| have been under cultivation during the
last 50 years or longer are beginning to
showbwear. The use of stable manure
gives fertility, but many tobacco fields
that are rich enough, and too rich, per-
haps. for small grain, do not respond
to the cultivation of tobacco as they
did years ago when the land was new.
This experience has led the experiment
station at our agricultural college to go
into the study of soil chemistry to as
certain what chemical elements are ex-
hausted in the soil, or if not exhausted,
inactive in the production of the de-
sired qualities of the crop. When some
thing is wrong with the field, the wide
awake farmer will try to find out the
cause of it. The Farm Bureau and it's
agents, and the county agents who are
familiar with such phenomena, can be
of the greatest service to the commun-
ity in these matters. Through their
service the owners of the land may find
out, if he himself is not fully posted on
these matters, what are the particular
elements that his fields are low on, and
obtain information as to the kind of
treatment the soil on his farm needs to
do it's very best. In this way the farm
er will be able to call for that kind of
fertilizer which his land is in need of.
AS the years pass, and the soil is called
upon to bear crops, the farmers, es-
pecially in the tobacco belt, will need
to use more and more of the sO-called
commercial fertilizers. Even though
they increase the size of their herds
and thereby produce more barnyard
manure, and learn to utilize this to the
greatest advantage, they will have to
improve the general fertility of the
whole farm in order to produce more
grain, hay and corn on every acre,
needed TO feed the larger number of
animals on the place. Intensive farm
ing is the problem of the Wisconsin ag-
rlculturalist hereafter, and to produce
intensively on his land, the farmer
must be diagnostician of the soil he
is handling, in order to apply the prop
er remedies to it in keeping it we'll and
active. There is too much guessing
and too little knowing.
**#
Mr.. Edward FL. Davis, representative
of the U. S. Tobacco Journal, now in
Europe, suggests that American i'm
porters of Sumatra leaf get together
and buy land in the island of Sumatra
for the cultivation of the type of wrap
per needed in the American market.
At the present time American firms
are buying tobacco land over there and
turning it into rubber plantations. If
American money and initiative can pro-
duce rubber to advantage in Sumatra,
why could not tobacco culture be taken
over by American capital under Ameri-
can supervision? 1t is up to the brains
and long purse of Water street.
The consumption of tobacco in Swed-
en- is more than twice as large as in
1916, the years 1913 and 1919 showing
especially large gains. The heavy de-
| mand has taxed the manufacturing fa-
| cilities of the monopoly to the limit,
the production in 1919 showing an in
crease of $4,000, 600 cigars and 437, ,O0O,-
600 cigarettes, as compared with 1918.
There has been growing demand for
more expensive brands of cigars and
cigarettes, and it was necessary to i'm
port large quantities of these from the
| United Statds and England. The Swed-
ish government tobacco monopoly shows
very satisfactory result for 1919 Be-
fore the monopoly was established the
average annual income of the govern
ment from tobacco amounted to but
but 5000, 900 kroner; in 1916, the first
year of the monopoly, the income was
q, 900, 900 kroner, and in 1919 it was
almost 10000, 900 kroner, according to
commerce reports.
Milwaukee cigar factories are still
tied up by the strike of the cigarmak-
ers. Neither side shows any willing
ness to yield. Some of the larger con-
Germs are intimating that they may re-
move their factories to cities where the
labor situation is more favorable to
their business than it is in Milwaukee.
Leaf tobacco has been piling up in
England for some time ROnf1ed ware