wn to large proportions. New
establishments have been opened, some of which are among the largest in
the world. The development of the American Tobacco Company and its
affiliated and subsidiary organizations has greatly reduced the number
of separate establishments. Many were bought by the combination; their
brands were transferred to another factory; and the original
establishments were closed as uneconomical. Many other small factories,
feeling or fearing the competition, closed voluntarily. But the total
production of tobacco has steadily increased. Plug and smoking tobacco
are largely confined to the Upper South. North Carolina easily leads,
while Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri (if it be classed as a Southern
State) also have factories which are known all over the world. Richmond,
St. Louis, Louisville, and New Orleans, and Winston-Salem and Durham in
North Carolina are the cities which lead in this industry. Winston-Salem
probably now makes more plug, and Durham more smoking tobacco, than any
other cities in the United States, and the cigarette production of the
former is increasing enormously. Some factories supply export trade
almost exclusively. There has been little development of the fine cigar
industry except in Louisiana and Florida, though in all cities of the
Lower South there are local establishments for the manufacture of cigars
from Cuban leaf. Richmond is a center for the manufacture of domestic
cigars and cheroots and has one mammoth establishment.

Twenty years or thirty years ago scattered over the South there were
thousands of small grist mills which ground the farmer's wheat or corn
between stones in the old-fashioned way. These are being superseded by
roller mills, some of them quite large, which handle all the local wheat
and even import some from the West. However, as the annual production of
wheat in the South has decreased rather than increased since 1880, it is
obvious that the industry has changed in form rather than increased in
importance.

There are other less important manufacturing enterprises in the South.
The census shows about two hundred and fifty distinct industries pursued
to a greater or less extent. Maryland ranked fourteenth in the total
value of manufactured products in 1914. Only seven Southern States were
found in the first twenty-five, while Minnesota, which is generally
considered an agricultural State, ranked higher in manufactures than any
of the Southern group in 19