The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 88

The planters, then, should enrich their lands, and aim to make full crops.

The increased consumption in Europe is three per cent., and in the United States four per cent. per annum.

The crop of the United States from 1840 to 1850 inclusive--say 11 years--averaged about 160,000 hhds.; this embraces the large crops of 1842-43-44.

The consumption of Europe from 1829 to 1838 was 96,826 hhds.--it is now 130,000.

An account of the quant.i.ties of unmanufactured tobacco, manufactured called negro-head, and cigars, imported into the United Kingdom in 1850:--

Countries from whence imported. Unmanufactured Manufactured United States of America 30,173,444 1,191,001 Venezuela, New Granada and Ecuador 895,523 527 Brazil 12,138 56,802 Peru 8,649 6 Cuba 589,627 153,819 British West Indies, including Demerara and Honduras 26,169 3,242 British Territories in the East Indies 14,500 25,332 Philippine Islands 12,233 51,210 Hongkong and China 2,706 2,340 Turkey, Syria, and Egypt 140,361 2,882 Malta 13,028 7,818 Italy, Sardinian Territories 431,939 17 Gibraltar 7 3,063 Spain 307,641 1,100 France 29,950 1,521 Channel Islands 149 1,342 Belgium 29,922 6,579 Holland 2,418,732 9,078 Hanseatic Towns 50,610 36,680 Other parts 8,930 1,980 ---------- --------- Total unmanufactured 35,166,358 1,556,321 Ditto manfactured 1,556,321 Snuff 1,197 ---------- Total 36,723,876

From the tobacco circulars of Messrs. Clagett, Son, and Co., leading brokers of London, dated Feb., 1st, 1850, I take the following extracts:--

The exhaustion of the stock has resulted from the concurrence of a gradually decreasing supply and increasing consumption, which may be very clearly perceived by a reference, first to the official returns from New Orleans of the yearly receipts of the western crops in each of the last seven years; and secondly, to the consumption of American tobacco in Great Britain and Ireland in the years 1847, 1848, and 1849, as compared with that of 1840, 1841, and 1842. We have no means of exhibiting with similar accuracy the relative consumption of Continental Europe in the latter as compared with the former part of these last ten years, but it is quite reasonable to a.s.sume that the increase, where there has been little or no duty, must have gone on more rapidly than it has done here, under the restraining force of a duty of 800 to 900 per cent.

The deliveries from London and Liverpool, independently of those from Scotland, Bristol, and Newcastle, for the use of Great Britain and Ireland, have been as follows:--In 1840, 15,037 hhds.; 1841, 15,019 hhds.; 1842, 15,468 hhds.; 1847, 18,091 hhds.; 1848, 18,595 hhds.; 1849, 18,738 hhds.

The highest estimates we have seen of the whole of the crops of the United Slates in 1849, do not exceed 140,000 hhds., of which it is not doubted that fully 45,000 hhds. will be required for consumption there, and we estimate the supply required for the consumption of Europe, South America, the West Indies, and Africa, at certainly not less than 125,000 hhds.; if these estimates be realised in fact, it will follow that the stocks at the close of this year must be 30,000 hhds. less than at the close of 1849.

We estimate the present consumption of American tobacco in Great Britain and Ireland as follows:--

The deliveries in London and Liverpool in 1849, were 18,738 hhds.; do. do. Bristol 1,400 hhds.; do. do. Scotland we a.s.sume at 2,800 hhds. Total 22,939.

Of Stripts, the deliveries in Liverpool last year were 8,544 hhds., of which about 300 were for exportation; the deliveries, therefore, were--For the use of Great Britain and Ireland, 8,250 hhds. In London we have no account of the deliveries of stripts, as distinguished from leaf, for the whole of last year; it is doubtless less than that in Liverpool, and we a.s.sume it at 7,000 hhds.; in Bristol it was about 900 hhds.; in Scotland we a.s.sume it at 2,400 hhds. Total 18,550 hhds.

Now, a.s.suming 1,500 hhds. of the deliveries in Scotland and Bristol to be included in the coastwise returns in London and Liverpool, then the consumption of Great Britain and Ireland would appear to be about 21,500 hhds. of American tobacco, and 17,000 for these to be stripts. The progressive increase which we have shown in the returns of 1849, as compared with those of 1840, must still go on.

Without troubling you with any detail of the stocks in each of the several markets, it may be sufficient to show that the summary of the whole in all the markets of Europe, other than Great Britain, consisted on the 31st December, 1849, of about 22,000 hhds.; of which about 18,000 were Maryland and 2,000 stalks; and it is important to notice especially the fact, that the stocks of the manufacturers and dealers in Germany, Holland and Belgium are unusually small. We have taken very considerable care to inform ourselves on this point, and are fully satisfied that the usual stocks in second or dealers' hands do not exist. The whole demand of the year must, therefore, be supplied from those stocks in importers' hands, from England or from the United States.

The following were the prices current in London in the spring of 1853:--Virginia Leaf, common, per pound, 3d. to 3d.; middling, 5d.

to 6d.; good and fine 6d. to 7d. Stripts, 5d. to 10d. Kentucky Leaf: common 3d., to 3d.; middling, 3d. to 4d.; good and fine, 5d. to 6d. Stripts, 5d. to 7d. Maryland, 3d. to 9d. Negrohead and Cavendish: common and heated, 4d. to 6d.; middling to good, 6d. to 8d. and 9d.; fine, 10d., 12d., 16d.; Barret's none. Columbian, 7d.

to 1s. 8d.; Brazil, 3d. to 6d.; flat, 5d. to 1s. 1d.; Manilla, 7d.

to 2s. 6d.; Havana, 10d. to 5s.; Yara, 11d. to 3s.; Cuba, 9d. to 1s.

1d.; ingars, 3s. to 16s.; cheroots, Manilla, 7s. 6d., nominal; German and Amersfoort 4d. to 1s. 3d.; stalks, duty paid, 2s. 6d. to 3s. 4d.; smalls, 2s. 9d to 2s.

The shipments to Europe were 76,516 hhds. against 40,652 hhds. the previous year, and 43,576 hhds. in 1850. The rapidity of sales, the diminished stocks even now held in first hands, were taken as an infallible index of the progressive rate of consumption; and of a truth the quant.i.ty of hogsheads received in the princ.i.p.al markets of Belgium, Holland, Germany, and the North, and as speedily relieved from the control of the importers, was enough to control even those who were alive to the existing necessities of Europe, and to give a color to the rumour of almost inexhaustible consumption.

This extraordinary demand for tobacco on the continent has been occasioned by three distinct causes; the first of which was the pressing wants which, for the last two years, were well known to have existed, and the constant willingness of consumers to act at the very moderate rates which prevailed some time last spring. The second was the compulsory purchases by the Austrian Government, amounting, it is estimated, to 20,000 hhds., by reason that the discontented Hungarians, for political considerations, abandoned altogether the cultivation of tobacco, and which deficiency was obliged to be replaced by American growths. The third cause also had a political origin: the antic.i.p.ation of the extension of the Zollverein or German Customs League to the Kingdoms of Hanover and Oldenburg, whereby the duties on tobacco in those countries would be greatly increased, was a natural incentive to the dealers and manufacturers there to lay in heavy stocks, to reap the benefit thereon; and these last two causes, therefore, may be viewed in the light of fortuitous circ.u.mstances, which have fostered a speculation originally founded on the cheapness of money alone.

It has been shown, and the statistics of the past year fully confirm the statement, that a plethora of money and prosperity among the middle cla.s.ses of society, while it induces to the consumption of tobacco in general, rather curtails than otherwise the demand for American growths. A poor man addicted to smoking takes his pipe not from choice, but necessity; as he grows independent, the humble pipe is abandoned and the more costly cigar a.s.sumed. We have frequently heard this matter noticed, more especially after the disasters which followed the railway speculations of 1846, when the demand for English cigars sensibly declined; and we have now a further verification of the a.s.sertion in the opposite sense, the sales of cigar materials in Bremen having been extended more than 40 per cent, in three years, viz., from 94,750 bales and cases in 1850 to 135,650 during last season.

From New Orleans we learn that the arrivals from the interior since the 1st September had amounted to 18,043 hhds. against 5,165 hhds.

last season, and the stock on hand was 24,128 hhds. against 7,927 hhds. only.

The shipments from Virginia during the past year exceeded 13,700 hhds. In 1851 they were under 4,000 casks.

From Baltimore 54,272 hhds. have been exported. The official figures for the previous year gave 35,967 as the total.

The aggregate stock of tobacco on the 1st of January last, in the princ.i.p.al ports of America, was taken at 52,982 hhds. against 45,292 the year before and the growth of the Western States, Virginia, and Maryland during 1852, to come forward for our supply the present season, is estimated at 185,000 hhds., notwithstanding all the unfavorable influences and curtailing causes which were said to have prevailed.

The method adopted of cultivating tobacco in Virginia is thus described:

Several rich, moist, but not too wet spots of ground are chosen out in the fall, each containing about a quarter of an acre or more, according to the magnitude of the crop, and the number of plants it may require.

These spots, which are generally in the woods, are cleared, and covered with brush or timber, for five or six feet thick and upwards; this is suffered to remain upon it until the time when the tobacco seed must be sowed, which is within twelve days after Christmas. The evening is commonly chosen to set these places on fire, and when everything thereon is consumed to ashes, the ground is dug up, mixed with the ashes, and broken very fine. The tobacco seed, which is exceedingly small, being mixed with ashes also, is then sown and just raked in lightly; the whole is immediately covered with brushwood for shelter to keep it warm, and a slight fence thrown around it. In this condition it remains until the frosts are all gone, when the brush is taken off, and the young plants are exposed to the nutritive and genial warmth of the sun, which quickly invigorates them in an astonishing degree, and soon renders them strong and large enough to be removed for planting, especially if they be not sown too thick. Every tobacco planter, a.s.siduous to secure a sufficient quant.i.ty of plants, generally has several of these plant beds in different situations, so that if one should fail, another may succeed; and an experienced planter commonly takes care to have ten times as many plants, as he can make use of.

In these beds, along with the tobacco, they generally sow kale, colewort, and cabbage seed, &c., at the same time.

There are seven different kinds of tobacco, particularly adapted to the different qualities of the soil on which they are cultivated, and each varying from the other. They are named Hudson, Frederick, Thick-joint, Shoe-string, Thickset, Sweet-scented, and Oronoko. But although these are the princ.i.p.al, yet there are a great many different species besides, with names peculiar to the situations, settlements and neighbourhoods wherein they are produced; which it would be too tedious here to specify and particularise. The soil for tobacco must be rich and strong; the ground is prepared in the following manner:--after being well broke up and by repeated working, either with the plough or hand hoes, rendered soft, light, and mellow, the whole field is made into hills, each to take up the s.p.a.ce of three feet, and flattened at the top.

In the first rains, which are here called seasons, after the vernal equinox, the tobacco plants are carefully drawn while the ground is soft; carried to the field where they are to be planted, and one dropped upon every hill, which is done by the negro children. The most skilful slaves then begin planting them, by making a hole with their finger in each hill, inserting the plant with the taproot carefully placed straight down, and pressing the earth on each side of it. This is continued as long as the ground is wet enough to enable the plants sufficiently grown to draw and set; and it requires several different seasons, or periods of rain, to enable them to complete planting their crop, which operation is frequently not finished until July.

After the plants have taken root, and begin to grow, the ground is carefully weeded and worked, either with hand hoes or the plough, according as it will admit. After the plants have considerably increased in bulk, and begin to shoot up, the tops are pinched off, and only ten, twelve, or sixteen leaves left, according to the quality of the tobacco and the soil. The worms, also, are carefully picked off and destroyed, of which there are two species that prey upon tobacco. One is the ground worm, which cuts it off just beneath the surface of the earth; this must be carefully looked for and trodden to death; it is of a dark brown color, and short. The other is a horn worm, some inches in length, as thick as your little finger, of a vivid green color, with a number of pointed excrescences or feelers from his head like horns. These devour the leaf, and are always upon the plant. As it would be endless labor to keep their hands constantly in search of them, it would be almost impossible to prevent their eating up more than half the crop had it not been discovered that turkeys are particularly dexterous at finding them, eat them up voraciously, and prefer them to every other food. For this purpose every planter keeps a flock of turkeys, which he has driven into the tobacco grounds every day by a little negro that can do nothing else; these keep his tobacco more clear from horn worms than all the hands he has got could do were they employed solely for that end. When the tops are nipped off, a few plants are left untouched for seed. On the plants that have been topped, young shoots are apt to spring out, which are termed suckers, and are carefully and constantly broken off lest they should draw too much of the nourishment and substance from the leaves of the plant. This operation is also performed from time to time, and is called "suckering tobacco." For some time before it is ripe, or ready for cutting, the ground is perfectly covered with leaves, which have increased to a prodigious size, and then the plants are generally about three feet high. When it is ripe, a clammy moisture or exudation comes forth upon the leaves, which appear, as it were, ready to become spotted, and they are then of a great weight and substance. The tobacco is cut when the sun is powerful, but not in the morning and evening. The plant, if large, is split down the middle, and cut off two or three inches below the extremity of the split; it is then turned directly bottom upwards, for the sun to kill it more speedily, to enable the laborers to carry it out of the field, else the leaves would break off in transporting it to the scaffold. The plants are cut only as they become ripe, for a field never ripens altogether. There is generally a second cutting likewise, for the stalk vegetates and shoots forth again, and in good land, with favorable seasons, there is a third cutting also procured, notwithstanding acts of the Legislature to prevent cutting tobacco even a second time.

When the tobacco plants are cut and brought to the scaffolds, which are generally erected all around the tobacco houses, they are placed with the split across a small oak stick, an inch and better in diameter and four feet and a half long, so close as each plant just to touch the other without bruising or pressing. These sticks are then placed on the scaffolds, with the tobacco thus suspended in the middle, to dry or cure, and are called tobacco sticks. As the plants advance in curing, the sticks are removed from the scaffolds out of doors into the tobacco house, on to other scaffolds erected therein in successive regular gradations from the bottom to the top of the roof, being placed higher as the tobacco approaches to a perfect cure, until the house is all filled and the tobacco quite cured, and this cure is frequently promoted by making fires on the floor below.

When the tobacco house is quite full, and there is still more tobacco to bring in, all that is within the house is struck, and taken down, and carefully placed in bulks, or regular rows, one upon another, and the whole covered with trash tobacco, or straw, to preserve it in a proper condition, that is moist, which prevents its wasting and crumbling to pieces. But, to enable them to strike the cured tobacco, they must wait for what is there called a season, that is rainy or moist weather, when the plants will better bear handling, for in dry weather the leaves would all crumble to pieces in the attempt. By this means a tobacco house may be filled two, three, or four times in the year. Every night the negroes are sent to the tobacco house to strip, that is to pull off the leaves from the stalk, and tie them up in hands or bundles. This is also their daily occupation in rainy weather. In stripping, they are careful to throw away all the ground leaves and faulty tobacco, binding up none but what is merchantable. The hands or bundles thus tied up are also laid in what are called a bulk, and covered with the refuse tobacco or straw to preserve their moisture. After this, the tobacco is carefully packed in hogsheads, and pressed down with a large beam laid over it, on the ends of which prodigious weights are suspended, the other end being inserted with a mortice in a tree, close to which the hogshead is placed. This vast pressure is continued for some days, and then the cask is filled up again with tobacco until it will contain no more, after which it is headed up and carried to the pubic warehouses for inspection. At these warehouses two skilful planters constantly attend, and receive a salary from the public for that purpose. They are sworn to inspect with honesty, care, and impartiality, all the tobacco that comes to the warehouse, and none is allowed to be shipped that is not regularly inspected. The head of the cask is taken off, and the tobacco is opened by means of large, long iron wedges, and great labour, in such places as the inspectors direct. After this strict attentive examination, if they find it good and merchantable, it is replaced in the cask, weighed at the public scales, the weight of the tobacco and of the cask also cut in the wood on the cask, stowed away in the public warehouses, and a note given to the proprietor, which he disposes of to the merchant, and he neither sees nor has any trouble with his tobacco more. The weight of each hogshead must be 950 lbs. nett, exclusive of the cask--for less a note will not be given. Under the name of a crop hogshead, however, the general weight is from 1,000 to 1,200 or 1,300 lbs. nett, but if the tobacco is found to be totally bad, and refused as unmerchantable, the whole is publicly burnt in a place set apart for that purpose. However, if it be judged that there is some merchantable tobacco in the hogshead, the owner must unpack the whole publicly on the spot, for he is not permitted to take any of it away again, and must select and separate the good from the bad; the last is immediately committed to the flames, and for the first he receives a transfer note, specifying the weight, quality, &c.

This great and very laudable care was taken by the public to prevent frauds, which, however, was not always effectual, for, even with all these precautions, many acts of iniquity and imposition were committed.

So little is this crop cultivated in the States north of Maryland, that scarcely any notice has been taken of it in the agricultural or other public journals.

In Connecticut, in some few towns of Hartford county, considerable attention has been directed to it for a number of years past. A ton and a-half the acre is said to be no uncommon yield. The tobacco is planted very thick, two feet and a half each way. The seed came originally from Virginia. It is cured in houses, without having been yellowed in the sun, and without the use of fire. It is said that the best Havana cigars (as they are termed) are often manufactured from mixed Cuba and American tobacco, and sold under that name in Connecticut.

In the Connecticut Valley is produced about 500 tons of tobacco annually, the average quant.i.ty, 1,500 lbs. per acre, value from seven to ten cents per pound.

_Culture_.--Seed bed made rich and sown as cabbage early in April as possible.

Land well ploughed and manured and harrowed as for corn, laid out in rows three feet apart, and slight hills in the row about two and a-half feet apart; begin to plant about 10th of June, the ground to be kept clean with hoe and cultivator, and examine the plants and keep clear of worms.

"When in blossom and before seed is formed, the plants must be topped about thirty-two inches from the ground, having from sixteen to twenty leaves on each stalk, after this the suckers are broken off, and the plants kept clean till cut. When ripe the leaves are spotted, thick, and will crack when pressed between the fingers and thumb. It is cut at any time of the day, after the dew is off, left in the row till wilted, then turned, and if there is a hot sun, it is often turned to prevent burning; after wilting it is put into small heaps of six or eight plants, then carried to the tobacco house for hanging, usually on poles twelve feet long; hung with twine about forty plants to a pole, twenty on each side, crossing the pole with a hitch knot to the stump end of the plants; when perfectly cured, which is known by the stems of the leaves being completely dry, it is then taken in a damp time, when the leaves will not crumble, from the poles and placed in large piles, by letting the tops of the plants lap each other, leaving the b.u.t.ts out; it remains in these heaps from three to ten days before it is stripped, depending on the state of weather, but it must not be allowed to heat. When stripped it is made into small hands, the small and broken leaves to be kept by themselves; it is then packed in boxes of about 400 lbs. and marked "Seed Leaf Tobacco."

One acre of tobacco will require as much labor as two of corn that produce 60 bags to the acre, and requires about the same quant.i.ty of manure. If the tobacco can be cured without fire heat the quality will be improved, and if dried in the open air, should have shades of boards to keep off rain and excess of sun. The chief market for Connecticut tobacco is Bremen.

In a number of the "Charleston Southern Planter," a remedy is described for preventing the destruction of plants by the fly. The writer says: "I had a bushel or two of dry ashes put into a large tub, and added train oil enough (say one gallon of oil to the bushel of ashes) to damp and flavor the ashes completely: this was well stirred and mixed with the hand, and sown broadcast over certain patches, and proved thoroughly effectual for several years, while parts left without the remedy were destroyed."

The best ground for raising the plant, according to Capt. Carver ("Treatise on Culture of Tobacco," &c.), is a warm rich soil, not subject to be overrun with weeds. The soil in which it grows in Virginia is inclining to sandy, consequently warm and light; the nearer, therefore, the nature of the land approaches to that, the greater probability there is of its flourishing. The situation most preferable for a plantation is the southern declivity of a hill, or a spot sheltered from the blighting north winds. But at the same time the plants must enjoy a free current of air; for if that be obstructed they will not prosper.

The different sorts of seed not being distinguishable from each other, nor the goodness to be ascertained by its appearance, great caution should be used in obtaining the seed through some responsible mercantile house, or individual of character.

Each capsule contains about a thousand seeds, and the whole produce of a single plant has been estimated at 350,000. The seeds are usually ripe in the month of September, and when perfectly dry may be rubbed out and preserved in bags till the following season.

There is a large quant.i.ty of tobacco raised in the southern part of Indiana annually, equal in quality to the tobacco raised in Kentucky.

In some counties the article is extensively cultivated, and generally pays the producer a handsome profit on the labor bestowed on it. The cultivation of it is becoming more extensive every year. Nearly all this crop is taken to Louisville for sale, very little being shipped south on account of the producer.

Heretofore, owing to the heaviness of tobacco and bad roads, the producer has encountered great difficulties in getting his crop to market. The hauling of a few hogsheads fifty or sixty miles, or even forty, is no light job, even over good roads. Hence, tobacco has not been as extensively cultivated as it would have been under different circ.u.mstances. But, with the facilities afforded by the railroads in carrying their crops to market, I doubt not the farmers of the interior will more generally engage in the cultivation of tobacco, and those who have been in the habit of raising small crops will extend their operations.

In Maryland the seed is sown in beds of fine mould, and the plants arising therefrom are transplanted in the beginning of May. They are set at the distance of three or four feet apart, and are hilled, and kept continually free from weeds. When as many leaves have shot out as the soil will nourish to advantage, the top of the plant is broken off, which of course prevents its growing higher. It is carefully kept clear from worms, and the suckers which put out between the leaves are taken off at proper times, till the plant arrives at perfection, which is in August. When the leaves turn of a brownish color, and begin to be spotted, the plants are cut down and hung up to dry, after having sweated in heaps one night. When the leaves can be handled without crumbling, which is always in moist weather, they are stripped from the stalks, tied up in bundles, and packed for exportation in hogsheads. No suckers nor ground leaves are allowed to be merchantable. An industrious person may manage 6,000 plants of tobacco, which will yield 1,000 lbs. of dried leaves, and also four acres of Indian corn.

Miller, an American author, thus describes the mode of culture:--