The shipments from Samsoun in 1884 were as follows:—

Price.
cwt.£. s. d.£
To Turkey29,2104 0 0116,840
Austria8,5405 0 042,700
France5,7561 4 211,512
Egypt4,1764 0 016,704
Germany3,5791 8 65,096
Russia1,7306 0 010,380
Great Britain8321 4 21,002
Holland7121 12 01,140
Greece4163 0 01,248
54,951 206,622

United States.—The United States of America occupy the foremost rank among tobacco-growing countries. The areas and productions have been as follows:—1875, 559,049 acres, 379,347,000 lb.; 1876, 540,457 acres, 381,002,000 lb.; 1877, 720,344 acres, 489,000,000 lb.; 1878, 542,850 acres, 392,546,700 lb. The crop of 1875 (in millions of lb.) was thus contributed:—Kentucky, 130; Virginia, 57; Missouri, 40; Tennessee, 35; Maryland, 22; Pennsylvania, 16; N. Carolina, 14¾; Ohio, 13½; Indiana, 12¾; Connecticut, 10; Massachusetts, 8½; Illinois, 8. The average yields (in lb. per acre) of the various districts in 1875 were:—Connecticut, 1600; Pennsylvania, 1600; New Hampshire, 1600; Massachusetts, 1350; Missouri, 850; Arkansas, 822; New York, 800; Florida, 750; Ohio, 700; W. Virginia, 680; Maryland, 675; Tennessee, 675; Kansas, 670; Texas, 650; Kentucky, 630; Virginia, 630; Illinois, 550; Georgia, 550; N. Carolina, 500; Indiana, 500; Wisconsin, 500; Alabama, 465; Mississippi, 317. The exports from New York in 1878 were:—37,484 hogsheads, 2561 bales, and 2,218,200 lb. manufactured, to Great Britain; 15,570 hh., 207 bales, and 14,800 lb. manufactured, to France; 35,700 hh., 78,331 bales, and 147,400 lb. manufactured, to N. Europe ; 23,150 hh., 6058 bales, and 120,000 lb. manufactured, to other Europe; 4628 hh., 14,360 bales, and 4,780,200 lb. manufactured, to S. America, E. and W. Indies, &c. Baltimore exported 66,039 hh. in 1878. The shipments from New Orleans in 1877–8 were:—1226 hh. to Great Britain, 743 to France, 4552 to N. Europe, 3222 to S. Europe, Mexico, &c., and 4500 coastwise. Philadelphia, in 1879, exported 9,564,171 lb. of leaf tobacco, 52,000 cigars, and 515 lb. of snuff. The total American export of unmanufactured leaf in 1879 was 322,280,000 lb.

The census bulletin on this branch of industry, recently issued, is of a very interesting nature. The tobacco product in the United States is divided into classes, types and grades, the basis of a class being its adaptation to any specific purpose; of a type, to certain qualities or properties in the leaf, such as colour, strength, elasticity, body or flavour. It also applies to the method of curing, such as sun, air or flue curing. Grades represent the different qualities of a type, and vary much in the several types. The classification of American tobacco is threefold, viz. domestic cigar tobacco and “smokers,” chewing-tobacco, export tobacco. The domestic tobacco trade comprises the various kinds of seed-leaf of Connecticut, New England, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, Florida and Ohio, as well as the sorts known as White Burley “lugs,” fine-fibred wrappers, Indiana kite foot, and American-grown Havana. In the chewing class are included the fine-cut and the plug fillers, principally of the White Burley type from Kentucky, while under the head of export tobacco are the Virginian bird’s-eye cutting leaf, and the spinning fillers or shag. It is curious to notice how each market for export tobacco differs in its requirements. The “closed” markets, or those in which the tobacco trade is a monopoly of the Government, are France, Italy, Austria and Spain. The French “Régie” is supplied by wrappers, binders and fillers from Kentucky, Maryland and Ohio; the Italian Régie from Kentucky and Virginia; the Austrian Régie by “strips” from the same States, and the Spanish Régie by common “lugs.” The open markets are Germany, to which are sent the tobaccos known as German saucer and spinners; Ohio and Maryland, spangled cigar-wrappers and “smokers” fat lugs; Switzerland, which is supplied with Virginian or Western wrappers and fillers; Holland, with Dutch saucer (a mottled Virginia, Kentucky or Tennessee leaf); Belgium, with Belgian cutter (a light, yellowish-brown leaf, well fired); Norway and Sweden, with heavy types, mainly used for spinning and “saucing.” Kentucky, which stands first of all the States for production, the annual produce being 171,120,784 lb., gains her chief profits from the white burley and yellow wrapper; Illinois, from the production of the seed-leaf; Missouri, from sweet fillers and white burley; Virginia, from yellow wrappers, bright “smokers,” sun, air and flue-cured fillers. Decidedly the most prosperous tobacco States are those that grow types suitable for domestic consumption, while those that grow it mainly for exportation stand low in the scale, the margin of profit under this head being reduced very low. According to the researches of Dr. Gideon Moore, the largest amount of nicotine is contained in the Virginian heavily manured lots (5·81 per cent.), while the Virginian heavy English shipping has 4·72, the New York domestic Havana but 2·53, the Connecticut seed-leaf 1·14, while the smallest amount of all is found in the little Dutch tobacco of the Miami valley, 0·63. Profits in the culture of tobacco have been in direct proportion—first to its suitableness to domestic consumption; and, secondly, to the amount of fertilization practised by the growers in its cultivation. This is true in every case, except the yellow tobacco districts of North Carolina and Virginia, where poverty in the soil is a condition of success in the production of quality.

Professor J. T. Rothrock is of the opinion that the early natives of California smoked the leaves of Nicotiana clevelandii—a species only quite recently described by Professor Asa Gray. It is a small plant with small flowers, and it was found by Professor Rothrock only in association with the shell heaps which occur so abundantly on the coasts of Southern and Central California. He states that perhaps of all the remains of extinct races so richly furnished by that region, none were so common as the pipes, usually made of stone resembling serpentine. The tobacco of N. clevelandii Professor Rothrock found by experience to be excessively strong.

A recent report of the Commissioner of Agriculture contains a few pages of sound advice to American planters on the management of this crop, which is worthy of reproduction here.

“The principal points to be attended to if the best results are to be attained may be stated in a few paragraphs—paragraphs which, while referring mainly to shipping, manufacturing, and smoking tobacco as constituting nine-tenths of the tobacco grown in the United States, embody principles and prescribe modes of management nearly identical with those to be considered in the treatment of other tobaccos.

“I. Select good land for the crop; plough and subsoil it in autumn to get the multiplied benefits of winter’s freezes. This cannot be too strongly urged.

“II. Have early and vigorous plants and plenty of them. It were better to have 100,000 too many than 10,000 too few. They are the corner-stone of the building. To make sure of them give personal attention to the selection and preparation of the plant-bed and to the care of the young plants in the means necessary to hasten their growth, and to protect them from the dreaded fly.

“III. Collect manure in season and out of season, and from every available source—from the fence corners, the ditch-banks, the urinal, the ash-pile. Distribute it with a liberal hand; nothing short of princely liberality will answer. Plough it under (both the home-made and the commercial) in February, that it may become thoroughly incorporated in the soil and be ready to answer to the first and every call of the growing plant. Often (we believe generally) the greater part of manure applied to tobacco—and this is true of the ‘bought’ fertilizer as well as of that made on the farm—is lost to that crop from being applied too late. Don’t wait to apply your dearly-purchased guano in the hill or the drill from fear that, if applied sooner, it will vanish into thin air before the plant needs it. This is an exploded fallacy. Experience, our best teacher, has demonstrated beyond cavil that stable and commercial manure are most efficacious when used in conjunction. In no other way can they be so intimately intermixed as by ploughing them under—the one broadcasted on the other—at an early period of the preparation of the tobacco lot. This second ploughing should not be so deep as the first; an average of three to four inches is about the right depth.