TOBACCO CULTURE--WITH A NEW METHOD OF CURING THE LEAF.
The manufacture of cigars is one of the largest industries of San
Francisco. Last year the Government received taxes on 78,000,000 cigars
made in the State of California, and in September alone taxes were paid
on 8,000,000. But, though the State has thousands of acres of land well
fitted to produce tobacco, and though the "weed" has been grown here for
twenty years or more with great success, so far as getting a heavy crop is
concerned, I doubt if even 1,000,000 of cigars have, until this fall, been
made of tobacco raised in California.
There has, however, been no lack of efforts to produce here tobacco fit to
manufacture into cigars and for smoking and chewing purposes. The soil in
many parts of the State is peculiarly adapted to this plant; the climate,
mild and regular, favored its growth and hastened its perfection. The best
seed was procured from Connecticut, Kentucky, Virginia, Florida, and Cuba.
But for many years the product was rank, coarse, and fitter for sheep-wash
than for any other purpose.
Meantime, however, not a few men familiar with the old processes of
raising and curing the plant have tried their best ingenuity to improve
the quality. It was thought that the soil was too rich, because the
tobacco makes a rapid and heavy growth; but planting on thinner or older
soil did not answer. Several methods of curing were contrived, and there
is now reason to believe that the one known as the Culp process, from the
name of its patentee, will produce the desired result. I had heard and
read so much about it, and about the merit of the tobacco produced by
it, that I went down to Gilroy, seventy or eighty miles south of San
Francisco, to see what had really been accomplished. The account I give
below will probably interest many tobacco growing and manufacturing
readers, while it will, I fear, painfully affect the spirits of the
anti-tobacconists; for there is reason to believe that tobacco will become
presently one of the most important and valuable crops of this State.
I must premise that I am not an expert in tobacco, nor familiar with the
methods pursued in the East. I have seen a tobacco-field and the inside of
a Connecticut curing-house, and that is about all. I give, therefore, not
opinions, but facts.
Gilroy stands in a long and broad plain, a very rich piece of alluvial
bottom, with water so abundant that artesian wells are easily bored and
very common. At the depth of one hundred and thirty feet they get flowing
wells, and it happened in one case of which I heard that the water came up
with such force as to prevent the casing going down into the well, and
the pressure of the water broke away the ground, enlarged the bore of the
well, and threatened to flood a considerable area, so that the farmers
gathered in force, and by means of an iron caisson loaded with stones, and
with many cart-loads of stones besides, plugged up the dangerous hole.
The land is a deep alluvial loam, easily worked, and here, and in some
neighboring valleys, many tobacco growers have been engaged for the
last ten or twelve years. Mr. Culp, who was a tobacco grower, and, if I
understood him rightly, also a manufacturer in New York for some years
before he came here, and who appears, at any rate, to be a very thorough
farmer and a lover of clean fields, has planted tobacco here for fifteen
years. He has a farm of about seven hundred acres, four hundred of
which have this year been in tobacco. From him and others I learned the
following particulars of the way in which they cultivate the plant in
California.
They sow the seed from the 1st to the 10th of January, and sometimes even
in December. The beds are prepared and sown as in the East, except that
they do not always burn the ground over, which, if I remember rightly,
is invariably done in Missouri and Kentucky. In this season, the days are
always warm enough for the little plants; but there are light frosts at
night, and they are protected against these by frames covered with thin
cotton cloth.
The fields are plowed--by the best growers--ten inches deep; cross-plowed
and harrowed until the soil is fine, and then ridged--that is to say, two
furrows are thrown together. This saves the plants from harm by a heavy
rain, and also makes the ground warmer, and is found to start the plants
more quickly.
Planting in the fields begins about the 8th of April; and the plants are
set a foot apart in the rows, the rows being three feet apart, if they are
from Havana seed; if Connecticut or Florida, they stand eighteen inches or
two feet apart in the rows.
They had grown, besides Havana and Florida, for their crop, Latakia,
Hungarian, Mexican, Virginia, Connecticut-seed Standard, Burleigh, White
Leaf, and some other kinds, by way of experiment.
Cultivators and shovel-plows are used to keep the soil loose and clean;
if the weather should prove damp and cold, the shovel-plow is used to make
the ridges somewhat higher. They go over the fields twice in the season
with these tools, using the hoe freely where weeds get into the rows. Last
year, in twenty-six days after they were done planting, they had gathered
two bales of tobacco. This, however, is not common, and was done by very
close management, and on a warm soil.
All the tobacco growers with whom I spoke assert that they are not
troubled with that hideous creature, "the worm." They attribute this in
part to the excellence of their soil, and partly to the abundance of birds
and yellow jackets. They do not "worm" their crop, it seems, which must
give them an enviable advantage over Eastern growers.
They do not always "top" the Havana, and they do very little "suckering."
If the ground is clean, they let the suckers from the root grow, and these
become as large and heavy as the original plant. They believe that the
soil is strong enough to bear the plants and suckers, and that they get a
better leaf and finer quality without suckering.
The planting is continued from April until the latter part of July, so as
to let the crop come in gradually; the last planting may be caught by an
early frost, but whatever they plant before the 1st of July is safe in
any season. Cutting begins about the 4th of June, and this year they were
cutting still on the 19th of October. The earlier cut plants sprout again
at once, and mature a second and even a third crop. Mr. Culp told me that
he had taken four crops of Havana in one year from the same field, and I
saw considerable fields of third crop just cut or standing; but in some
cases the frost had caught this. "If the soil is in perfect order, we can
here make a crop of Havana in forty days from the planting," said he.
One man can prepare and take care of ten acres here, keeping it in good
order. For planting and cutting, of course, an extra force is used. One
man can set out or plant three thousand plants in a day of Havana; of the
other kinds from fifteen hundred to two thousand.
The tobacco is cut with a hatchet; if it is Havana, the toppers usually
go just ahead of the cutters in the field, or they may be a day ahead.
Florida is topped ten days or two weeks before cutting. You must remember
that after April they have no rain here, so that all field work goes on
without interruption from the weather, and crops can be exposed in the
field as a planter would not dare do in the East. Up to the cutting, the
methods here differ from those used in the East, only so far as climate
and soil are different.
When the plant lies in the field Mr. Culp's peculiar process begins; and
this I prefer to describe to you as nearly as I can in his own words.
He said that tobacco had long been grown in California even before the
Americans came. He had raised it as a crop for fifteen years; and before
he perfected his new process, he was able usually to select the best of
his crop for smoking-tobacco, and sold the remainder for sheep-wash.
One year two millions of pounds were raised in the State, and, as it was
mostly sold for sheep-wash, it lasted several years, and discouraged the
growers. Tobacco always grew readily, but it was too rank and strong. They
used Eastern methods, topping and suckering, and as the plant had here a
very long season to grow and mature, the leaf was thick and very strong.
The main features of the Culp process are, he said, to let the tobacco,
when cut, wilt on the field; then take it at once to the tobacco-house and
pile it down, letting it heat on the piles to 100 degrees for Havana.
It must, he thinks, come to 100°, but if it rises to 102° it is ruined.
Piling, therefore, requires great judgment. The tobacco-houses are kept
at a temperature of about 70 degrees; and late in the fall, to cure a late
second or third crop, they sometimes use a stove to maintain a proper heat
in the house, for the tobacco must not lie in the pile without heating.
[Illustration: INDIAN CRADLE, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.]
When it has had its first sweat, it is hung up on racks; and here Mr.
Culp's process is peculiar. He places the stalk between two battens,
so that it sticks out horizontally from the frame; thus each leaf hangs
independently from the stalk; and the racks or frames are so arranged that
all the leaves on all the stalks have a separate access to the air.
The tobacco-houses are frame buildings, 100 x 60 feet, with usually four
rows of racks, and two gangways for working. On the rack the surface
moisture dries from the leaf; and at the proper time it is again piled,
racked, and so on for three or even four times. The racks are of rough
boards, and the floor of the house is of earth.
After piling and racking for three weeks, the leaves are stripped from the
stalk and put into "hands," and they are then "bulked," and lie thus about
three months, when the tobacco is boxed. From the time of cutting,
from four to six months are required to make the leaf ready for the
manufacturer.
"Piling" appears to be the most delicate part of the cure, and they have
often to work all night to save tobacco that threatens to overheat. Mr.
Culp thinks the dryness of the climate no disadvantage. I was told
that they find it useful sometimes to sprinkle the floors of the
tobacco-houses.
I saw racks, too, in the fields--portable, and easily carried anywhere;
and on these a great quantity of Florida tobacco, used for chewing and
smoking, had been or was getting cured. It was piled in the field where it
was cut, and the whole curing process, up to "bulking," is carried on in
the open air. Havana "fillers" they also cure in the field, as the fine
color is not needed for that.
Mr. Culp thought his method of horizontal suspension allowed the juices
from the stalk to be carefully distributed among the leaves. He told me
that a fair average crop was about 1500 pounds of Havana, or 2500 pounds
of Florida, per acre, of merchantable leaf. In favorable localities this
was considerably exceeded, he said. For chewing-tobacco, the cut plant is
piled but once.
For four hundred acres of tobacco, about one hundred and twenty-five
Chinese were employed in cutting and curing. After planting and up to the
cutting season they had but fifty men employed. The Chinese receive one
dollar a day and board themselves, living an apparently jolly life in
shanties near the fields.
They get their Havana seed from Cuba. The Patent Office seed did not
do well. They do not like to risk seed of their own plants. He used
home-grown seed for nine years; he could not say that there was a serious
deterioration or change in the quality of the tobacco, but a singular
change in the form of the leaf took place. That from home-grown seed gets
longer, and the veins or ribs, which in Havana tobacco stand out at right
angles from the leaf stalk, take an acute angle, and thus become longer
and make up a greater part of the leaf. Of Florida tobacco the home-grown
seed comes true.
In summer the roads get very dusty in California, and this dust is a
disadvantage to the tobacco planter. On the Culp farm I found they were
planting double rows of shade trees along the main roads, and graveling
the interior roads; also, they seem to feel the high winds which sweep
through the California valleys, and were planting almonds and cotton-woods
for windbreaks in the fields. It seemed odd to see long rows of
almond-trees used for this purpose.
This process has so far won the confidence of experts in tobacco in this
State, that a company with large capital has undertaken not only the
raising of tobacco by its method, but also the manufacture into cigars,
and plug, smoking, and fine-cut chewing-tobacco. They are just beginning
operations in Gilroy, on a scale which will enable them to manufacture all
the tobacco grown this year on about six hundred acres, and they mean to
plant next year one thousand acres, and expect that from fifteen hundred
to two thousand acres will be planted and cured by others under licenses
from the patentee. Commercially, of course, their undertaking is yet an
experiment, though excellent cigars and tobacco have been made already;
but the year 1874 will decide the result; and if it should prove as
successful as is hoped, and as there is good cause to believe it will,
a new and very profitable branch of agriculture will be opened for the
farmers of this State; for tobacco will grow in almost all parts of it.
[Illustration: RUNNING THE ROOKERIES--GATHERING MURRE EGGS.]