So far as Europe is concerned, there has been a great decrease in tobacco cultivation during recent years. In the Netherlands, the acreage is at present something like half what it was ten or twelve years ago. In Belgium, the decrease in area has been considerable, but not to so great an extent. In Austro-Hungary the acreage under tobacco was in 1884 less by 8768 acres than two years previously. In Germany, the area of the crop fell from 1881 to 1883 by over 12,000 acres. Italy, with its magnificent climate, grows only 8202 acres; while in France, where the government purchase the crop, only 32,800 acres were grown last year. It is to America, however, that we must turn for our best information as to the growth of tobacco. In the last four census years, this crop was grown to the following extent: 1850, crop of 199,752,655 pounds; 1860, crop of 434,209,461 pounds; 1870, 262,735,341 pounds; and 1880, crop of 472,661,117 pounds, grown on 638,841 acres. Here we find that although there was a great decrease in the growth of this crop after the war, it gradually picked up again, and the crop is now as large as ever. In 1883, 451,545,641 pounds were grown on an area of 638,739 acres. Its total value was £8,091,072.
The method of cultivation adopted in the United States cannot fail to be of use to the English or Irish grower. In the first place, a word should be said upon the position of tobacco in crop rotations. Travellers in South America have often noticed the desolate appearance of some portions of the country. This is due to the exhaustion of the soil by continuous tobacco-growing. A very large proportion of what was known as tobacco land has thus been reduced to a condition of poverty, and has been left to itself, and is covered with weeds. A good authority declares that this fault can be easily remedied, and that by growing tobacco as a rotation crop. After two crops of tobacco have been taken from the land, and after this a crop of corn, and then a crop of clover or vetches, after the latter have been cut or fed off, the land may be again prepared for another crop of tobacco. A word may be said here also on manures. In the best tobacco plantations, two hundred pounds of nitrate of soda and two hundred and fifty pounds of superphosphate per acre are used—the former bringing up a heavier crop, and the latter improving its quality. Besides these, large applications of farmyard manure are made. Taking Wisconsin as the State more particularly to be treated of, we find that the seed-beds are burned lightly, and a liberal allowance of manure worked in, to the depth of six inches, with a hoe or spade. This work of preparation begins in July, when the manure is applied. The bed is reworked in August, and again in September, for the purpose of keeping down any weeds or grass that may spring up; and finally, in November, it is hoed and raked and prepared to receive the seed, which is either sown in the Fall or early in the succeeding spring. When sown in the Fall, the seed is not previously sprouted. After sowing, the bed is compacted by rolling, tramping, or clapping with a board. The plants are carefully nursed by liquid manuring and by weeding. The young plants are generally large enough for transplanting by the 1st of June.
The land for the main crop—that is, into which the plants are transplanted from the seed-bed—is ploughed in the Fall after the crop of the previous year, and twice in the spring—in May, and just before the 1st of June. Coarse and rough manures are applied with the autumn ploughing, and finer well-rotted sorts in May. After the last ploughing, the land is thoroughly pulverised by harrows or drags, and marked off for the plant. The varieties of tobacco grown are either the seed-leaf or the Spanish. If the former, the plants are placed two and a half feet by three feet apart; but if the latter, three feet by a foot and a half. Thus, if the seed-leaf variety, some five thousand five hundred plants are used to the acre; and if the Spanish, nine thousand six hundred. As soon as the soil is in proper condition to work after the plants have been set out, a cultivator with five teeth is run between the rows, and this is kept up once or twice a week, until the field has been gone over five or six times. The crop is hoed twice—once after the cultivator has been run through the first time. Very little earth is put round the plant, level cultivation being preferred. In some portions of the district, a horse-hoe is used in cultivating the crop; this implement, from its peculiar construction, enables the operator to go very near each plant and stir every portion of the soil. In very small patches, the cultivation is done entirely with the hoe, which is kept up every week until the plants are so large that they cannot be worked without breaking the leaves.
The next operations are termed ‘topping’ and ‘suckering.’ In about forty-eight or fifty days after the plants are set, if the crop has been well cultivated and the weather seasonable, the flower-buds make their appearance, and are pinched out, leaving from fourteen to sixteen leaves on each plant. None of the bottom leaves are taken off, but all are left to mature, or dry up, serving as a protection against the dirt. Fields, however, are often seen in full blossom before the tobacco is topped, and this results in great damage to the crop. Tobacco is suckered twice—once in about a week after it is topped, and again just before it is cut, which is generally about two weeks after topping. ‘Suckering’ consists in the removal of young suckers, which at this time make their appearance in large numbers. As has been noted, tobacco is generally ready for harvesting in two weeks after being topped; but there is considerable variation in the time on various soils. On warm sandy loams, the plant will be as ripe in twelve days as it will be on heavy clayey soils in eighteen days. This is one of the reasons why sandy loams are preferred.
Harvesting commences early in August, and continues without intermission into September. The time preferred for cutting is from two o’clock in the afternoon until nearly sundown, because at that time tobacco is less liable to be blistered by the heat of the sun. The instrument used for cutting is a hatchet, the plants being cut off nearly on a level with the ground, and laid back on the rows to ‘wilt.’ After wilting, they are speared on laths. Of the large seed-leaf variety, only about six plants are put on a lath, but of the smaller Spanish (or Havana) variety, ten are not considered too many. After being speared on the laths, the latter are carefully put on a long wagon-frame, made for the purpose, and carried to the sheds, where they are arranged on the tier poles or racks, from six to ten inches apart, according to the size of the plant, but never so close as to permit them to touch each other. It requires six weeks to cure the Spanish variety perfectly, and two months to cure the seed-leaf. If the weather is dry, after the crop is out, the doors are kept closed during the day and opened at night; but extreme care must be taken not to cure too rapidly. In muggy, sultry weather, as much air as possible should be given, thorough ventilation being indispensable, to prevent ‘pole-sweat.’ Continuous damp weather and continuous dry weather are both to be feared. It is believed by many good growers that white veins are the result of a drought after the tobacco has been harvested, and it is said that no crop cured when there is plenty of rain is ever affected with them. Inferences of this kind, however, are too often drawn without considering a sufficient number of cases to warrant the enunciation of a general law. This is the view put forth by Mr Killebrew, in an able paper on Tobacco-culture written for the American government. He, however, further points out that it is a well-established truth, deduced from the universal experience of the cultivation of seed-leaf tobacco in every State, that a crop cannot be cured without the alternations of moist and dry atmospheres.
A few words may be said on the curing of tobacco generally. Three systems are adopted in the United States. It may be (1) air-dried; (2) dried by open-fire heat from charcoal or wood fires in the barn; or (3) by flues which convey heat from ovens and heaters built outside the barn. The last method is said to be the best, as a better control can be had over the temperature. No regular rule can be given, as the heat must be regulated according to circumstances, and must change with the weather. The main thing is to dry the tobacco gradually to secure a good colour, and to prevent mould. When the tobacco is dry, it must be kept so by gentle fires in wet or damp weather, and it is not touched for the purpose of ‘bulking’ until it has become soft and pliable. Artificial sweating is believed by some to be accompanied with less risk than sweating by the natural process; and second stories of warehouses are sometimes prepared as sweating chambers by being closely ceiled or plastered. These are heated by furnaces, and the temperature maintained at from one hundred and ten to one hundred and forty degrees.
After curing, the tobacco is prepared for market. This consists of stripping the leaves from the stalks, tying them up in large bundles, and afterwards sorting them. After being sorted in ‘grades,’ these are tied up in ‘hands’ of from eighteen to twenty leaves, securely wrapped with a leaf at the butt-end, and ‘bulked’ in piles, with the heads out and the tails overlapping in the centre of the bulk. Here it remains until the ‘fatty stems’ are thoroughly cured, when it is sold to the dealers. These latter pack it in barrels and sweat the leaves still further; but into this subject we need not go, as it can have but little interest to the farmer who intends growing tobacco in this country.
So far as the cost of growing tobacco is concerned, a large and successful grower in Pennsylvania, some two years ago, published the following statement of cost and returns from a field of nine and a half acres: 215¾ days’ labour of men from preparing the seed-bed up to the hanging in the barn, £43; team-work, 38½ days, with feed for 42½ days, £30; curing, stripping, and marketing, £15: total, £88. The net receipts were £174; thus showing a profit of £86. This was in a fairly good year.
These few notes show us that tobacco is a crop requiring a great expenditure of labour and care, and that even in America the profits of thirty pounds per acre, about which we have heard so much, are not always realised. The probabilities, however, are so much against our getting really fine qualities of tobacco, that it is doubtful if the necessary capital will be put into the business.