Florida Tobacco Plantation.
This peculiar tobacco region is without doubt capable, with proper management, of producing a superior article for cigars, both wrappers and fillers, and when grown on "new ground" the staple is exceedingly fine. The leaf cures as rapidly, and is of as good color as in Cuba, and in a favorable season and when harvested fully ripe, is destitute of that bitter taste formerly ascribed to it. The plants grow large, and have that smooth, shiny appearance peculiar to Havana tobacco, the leaves growing erect, and frequently covered with "specks" or "white rust," one of the best evidences of a fine flavored and a good-burning tobacco. A Florida tobacco-grower gives the following account of the plant:
"The Gadsden 'wrapper-leaf' was always in high repute, and extensively used in the manufacture of cigars, being in size, firmness, and texture fully equal to the best Cuba, and far superior to the Connecticut seed-leaf. Where the variety known as the Cuba filler has been tried, it has succeeded finely in this county, possessing that delicate and peculiar aroma so highly prized in the Havana cigars. We need but the capital to make the most profitable crop that is grown. It is a fact, that of all the counties of the State, many of them abounding in the very finest soil, Gadsden is the only one that has succeeded in making the Cuba tobacco a staple market-crop. Prior to 1860 it rivaled in net returns the great staple cotton, and from present indications, it is about to resume its former status among the great agricultural products of the country."
"Whether this success is attributable to any peculiarity in the elements of the soil, I am not able to determine, but this fact is worthy of note, that, except immediately on the banks of the Apalachicola River, which forms the Western boundary of the County, there is an entire absence of the rotten limestone which so largely pervades the other sections of the State. For the planter of limited means, there is no crop so well suited to his condition as the Cuba tobacco. To produce a given result there is a less area of land required than is demanded for the production of any other field crop. The cultivation, harvesting, and preparation for market is simple, and the labor so light that it may be participated in by every member of the family, male and female, over six years of age. The growth of the plant is so rapid, and its arrival at maturity so quick, that it never interferes with any of the provision crops, and rarely with a moderate cotton crop."
In Louisiana the tobacco plant flourishes well and grows as well and as luxuriantly as sugar cane. Even along the banks of the Mississippi the plants attain good size, and succeed as finely as in some of the other parishes in the interior of the State. The Perique and Louisiana tobacco are the principal varieties cultivated, and attain nearly the size of Connecticut seed leaf. In St. James parish the soil seems well adapted for Perique tobacco, and here it readily takes on that black hue that is one of the peculiar features of this singular variety. In Coddo parish tobacco is cultivated to some extent, but does not produce a leaf equal to that grown in St. James Parish. The tobacco grown in the Parishes of Bossier and Natchitoches is used chiefly by the growers of the parishes and is fitted for both smoking and snuff.
The Louisiana planters have adopted the method of the French in doing up their tobacco—twisting it in rolls, or as the French call them, "Carrots." The planters of St. James Parish annually put up from ten to fourteen thousand carrots of Perique, each carrot weighing about four pounds.
Mr. Perique, from whom the tobacco takes its name, made many improvements in the manner of preparing the tobacco for market, one of which consisted in taking up the twisted lumps (after remaining in press for six months), spreading them to fifteen or sixteen inches in length and having completed four pounds in weight, rolling it into a lump which retained its shape by means of a rope one-fourth inch in diameter, tightly twisted around it. The labor in pressing and twisting is entirely done by hand, and attended to with the most scrupulous care.
Louisiana Tobacco Plantation.