Show written for this paper IN THE TOBACCO LANDS copyrighted 1896 1696 by frank 0 carpenter DANVILLE virginia nov jtb 1896 AM on my way south to take a birdseye birds eye view of the industrial situation of the country I 1 propose to visit the chief centers of the united states and to give the facts as I 1 find them notwithstanding the present hard times we are said to be the wealthiest nation on the globe I 1 want to show where a areat part of our wealth comes from and how bow we get it my first travels have been in the great tobacco belts of virginia and north nonh carolina this regon region is filled with tobacco plantations you see the square log cabins known as tobacco barns on every farm and the farmers are now bringing in their crops in wagons to the great auction markets here the tobacco raised here is some of the best of df the world and buyers from the different countries of europe are stationed here the year round the danville loose tobacco market is the biggest of the kind in the world and there is no market like it under the sun before I 1 describe it let me give you some idea of what tobacco means to the united states it is one ot of our great money crops and it brings us millions of dollars in gold from europe every year it amounts at times to almost as much as the product of our gold mines minea it 1893 it sold for more than and in 1894 about ot of this last amount was sold to europe asia africa and south america and the most of it was corn com posed of tobacco leaves packed up for shipment almost as they came from the larmer our tobacco crop comes from nearly every state slate and territory of the union and it is of a dozen or more different kinds some is especially fitted for export some for plug some for fine cut some for the different varieties of smoking and some for snuff I 1 saw at durham north carolina yesterday a snuff factory which makes large laie quantities of snuff for the small dippers of the south the tobacco is half rotted and mixed with other ingredients before it is ground into the titillating and toothsome tooth som e product so largely lar gely in demand dem and for rubbing with a chewed stick against the teeth it is packed in ox bladders in balls ranging in size from that of your fist to that of your head and sold by the ounce or pound there is a smoking tobacco made in L louisiana oai siana about fifty miles north of new orleans known as the perique tobacco which is as black as your hat and almost as strong as aqua tortis fords this is the finest tobacco made for it is cured in its own juices while other tobacco is mixed with all sorts ot of sweetening and is sugared and salted and flavored to taste the perique tobacco is sold chiefly in new orleans it is put up in rolls wrapped round with cords and is said to grow sweeter as it grows older it is very expensive and is too strong for those who are not accustomed to use it smoking tobacco is grown almost everywhere but there is is a great difference in the quality and prices obtained in the region where I 1 am now writing the finest of cigarette tobacco is produced and hundreds ot of millions of the little white papered health destroyers come from the soil ot of virginia and the two carolinas the tobacco is mild light and yellow and it has a high flavor I 1 had an idea until I 1 came here that our tobacco was raised on big plantations and I 1 expected to find tobacco fields containing hundreds of acres the tact fact is thai thae the most ot of the crop comes from garden patches sand and that the fields are small the farmers estimate the size of their crop not by the acre but by the hill there are about hills to the acre and the man who has a half million hills ot of tobacco is a nabob in the he whole united states not much more than half a million acres are put in tobacco each year the tobacco in most cases is but one ot of a number of crops raised on a farm it is however like wheat in the north or cotton further south the money crop and the farmer depends upon it for his ready cash it is a very expensive crop and requires reou ires almost constant labor from planting ng in the early spring until about august or september when it is cured lor for the market I 1 met at durham colonel walker an old tobacco planter and now the leadin leading buyer tor for one ot of the biggest tobacco firms of the world and asked him to tell me in simple language the story ot of tobacco from the seed to the mouth of the consumer said he tobacco is a king among plants and it requires royal treatment the seed is no bigger than mustard seed and the danger is is in using too much seed rather than too little f T was talking not long ago with a farmer outside the tobacco districts about tobacco raising he became interested and said well I 1 would like to raise a little tobacco and I 1 wish you would se send nd me about a bushel ot of seed tor for a trial why a bushel of tobacco seed would plant the whole state of north carolina one ounce of tobacco seed contains seeds and a single plant will produce seed enough for ten acres of hills the seeds are so small that they have to be mixed with ashes or dirt before planting in in order not to sow them too thick how are they planted said I 1 with a drill no replied the veteran tobacco raiser they are sown by hand in a plant bed or hot bed much like cabbage plants and when the little sprouts come up they are pulled out and transplanted in hills like cabbage or tomatoes the making of them the plant bed is not easy the ground is covered with wood and burned so that the earth is roasted and all of the insects and vegetable matter seeds etc cooked out of it it is heavily and after the seed is sown it is covered over with thin c cloth ath something like cheese cloth to keep in the heat and to keep keel out the insects A plant bed twenty yards square will raise enough plants for tobacco hills alter after the plants are set out 11 colonel walker continued they have to be cultivated and watched they are hilled ti up like potatoes Q and the weeds a are kept down own the plants grow to a he height iaz t of three or four feet the leaves branch out in all directions and where each leaf joins the stalk suckers sprout out these have to be pulled off again and again that all of the strength of the plant may go into the leaf and for the same reason the top is cut off in order that the plant may not go to seed every plant has to be examined night and morning to see that worms and insects are not eating it man is by no means the only thing that likes a mouthful of tobacco there are cut worms who attack the plants flees and beetles chew at it and aind grasshoppers and crickets are fond of its juice the worst enemy however is the horn worm or tobacco worm this comes from a moth which can lay a thousand eggs in a night the eggs are not bigger than mustard seeds and they hatch in a few hours into worms of the thickness of a horse horde hair and about one sixteenth of an inch long they at once begin to eat tobacco and within a week or so they are more than an inch in length and as big around as your little finger feager A full grown worm will eat up a tobacco leaf in in a night and if not watched they will destroy the crop how is the crop harvested I 1 asked this is done when the leaves begin to turn yellow some farmers strip the leaves from the stalk and string them on wires vires others cut off the stalks and string them on sticks which are stu stuck ck in the ground they are then carried to the tobacco barns and hung up to be cured these barns areC are closed losea houses each has a set of flues land and pl pipes pes in it so that it can be heated and b by y a thermometer the temperature is k kept ept just at the right point till the tob tobacco acco is cured this re requires ai res days an and nights of firing and tt the e tobacco must be watched steadily during this time when the tobacco is cured all the moisture has been dried out of it it has turned yellow and it is ready to be prepared for the market it has to be sprinkled to make the leaves soft that they may be stripped from the stalk and sorted different parts of the plants go into different piles the leaves nearest the ground are placed in one class those next higher in another and so on to the top then a half dozen or more leaves are tied together by wrapping another leaf about their stems and in such bundles the whole crop is carried to the market or auctions where it is sold and the farmer at once gets the cash for it A thousand pounds to the acre would be a very good yield 0 I 1 shall not soon forget the auction rooms at danville which I 1 visited today with colonel J M neal one of the oldest of the tobacco buyers there are here eleven immense warehouses each of which covers several acres in which thousands of pounds of tobacco are sold at auction every day the sales sale during the tobacco year which closed last month amounted to pounds which brought more than in cash the warehouses are under the control of the danville tobacco association and everything is done by rule the tobacco raised as colonel walker has described it is brought in by the farmers and laid in long rows of piles each about as big around as a washtub upon the floor each thans mans crop is separate and each pile is marked with a card which bears the name of the owner the warehouses are lighted by many skylights and windows and the lemon colored tobacco shines out in all its beauty A rich tobacco aroma fills the room it is not like that of store tobacco but sweeter and purer walking about among the piles are scores of tobacco buyers they are shrewd looking men who have been in the business for many years and who in the dark could tell to a cent the value of tobacco by the smell and feel the sales go on from warehouse to warehouse each taking its turn now the auctioneer appears he is a bar d featured voiced man of forty he begins at one end of the room and walks down a row of piles selling each lot as he be goes the crowd follow him they pull out the bunches and smell and feel them he talks all the while in that high rasping voice his jaws aws going like a corn sheller and making much the same sound he has to talk fast for the rules are that he must auction off lots every hour or almost three to the minute still some of these lots are worth hundreds of dollars and each is the years work of at least one farmer the bidders bid derso however are accustomed to the work and they speak quickly after finishing one row the auctioneer starts down another and so on to the close when he takes another warehouse and talks on As soon as a sale is made a bookkeeper who follows the auctioneer marks it down and within two minutes there affer the farmer can get the cash from the warehouse which acts as it were as a clearing house for the buyers the prices of tobacco so sold range all the way from x cent up to 75 cents a pound and the best of judgment is required in the bidding leaving the warehouses I 1 next visited a large tobacco factory where the yellow leaf is is converted into the toothsome plug the chewing of tobacco so far from decreasing seems to be increasing yearly and millions of pounds of plug and fine cut are sold every year st louis has today the biggest plug factory in the world but plug tobacco of different grades is made in in many places and the factors tell me there is money in it the factory I 1 visited is doing a good business and this seems to be the case with the tobacco establishments of north carolina plug tobacco is as dif different lerent in its qualities as coffee or tea it is made in different grades and sold at different prices the tobacco has to go through many processes before it is ready tor for chewing first it must bt be stemmed or stripped that is the stems must be pulled from the leaves this is done by negroes in in a room at a warm temperature and the probability is that the perspiration of the employed emp loyes aids in the favor of the plug the next process however removes the evidence of any such odor the tobacco chewer is not satisfied with the pure leaf his chew must be sweetened and flavored to taste A black liquid composed of licorice sugar glycerine salt and flavoring extracts is evenly sprayed on the tobacco as it is carried through an im immense copper cylinder it is then taken to the rolling room where hundreds of colored men and women boys and girls stand at tables and press the leaves out into shape and then roll them into bundles a little larger than the size ot of the plugs which are to be made from them here the bundles are weighed as they are made and are carried oft off to be squeezed by hydraulic pressure into the plugs of the chewer it was at durham N C that I 1 saw the process ot of making smoking tobacco I 1 went through rooms where the leaves are cut into the bits composino com composing 9 the granulated tobacco used lor for the pipe parts of the factory were almost suffocating with their smell and dust and I 1 sneezed again and again as I 1 made my way through them the machines which handle the tobacco make you think of those afan immense flouring floering flou ring mill the tobacco is raised by elevators from one floor to another and at the to top 1 it lies in great piles as big as haystacks and containing hundreds of thousands of pounds the tobacco machines cut the leaves into bits and separate the stems and the dust from the stuff saved jor or smoking after the tobacco is cut it is flavored by squirting a mixture of what smelled much like rum and some flavor ing extracts over it this is done with a hose 1 remember as I 1 saw the gallons of aromatic spirit flying in streams over a big stack of tobacco the story of the irishman and the plum pudding came back to me pat had had his first taste of the pudding and was smacking his lips over the rum dressing och ocha said he what an illi elligant gant pudding this would be if it was every bit dressing the same tobacco as that for the pipe is used for cigarettes there are immense cigarette factories at richmond virginia at durham north carolina and in many southern cities cigarettes are made almost altogether by machines which are manipulated by white girls this is the only branch ot of tobacco making I 1 have seen which is not run almost entirely by negro labor the managers of the different establishments tell me that chev consider their colored help the best help in the world and that it is both efficient and steady the tobacco area of the united states is increasing we are producing better tobacco ebani th ever before and our shipments of cigarettes to foreign countries are enormous we now send them by the million to china and japan and american cigarettes are smoked in every part of the world |