The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,257 pages of information about The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom.

The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,257 pages of information about The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom.
his pipe not from choice, but necessity; as he grows independent, the humble pipe is abandoned and the more costly cigar assumed.  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 assertion 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 principal 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, assiduous to secure a sufficient quantity of plants, generally has several of these plant beds in different
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The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.