es, the growers continued its cultivation
until it has become one of the great products of the State. Of late
the Ohio growers have demonstrated that their soil is better adapted
for the finer grades of cutting leaf, than for seed leaf or even the
more common "cinnamon blotch."

The soil is rich, and an experience of half a century has at length
given them a thorough knowledge of the plant and the most successful
modes of cultivation. In appearance an Ohio tobacco field resembles
those of the Connecticut valley--the leaf is large, and though
coarser, cures down a dark rich brown, like "cinnamon blotch," or a
light yellow, the color of the famous "white tobacco." The Ohio
growers have taken much pains with the Ohio broad leaf, and have
produced a seed leaf tobacco that in many respects is a superior
wrapper for cigars. While it does not possess the fine texture of
Connecticut seed leaf it still has many good qualities, and with the
careful culture given it will doubtless become still finer as a leaf
tobacco, for wrapping cigars. But it is in the production of cutting
leaf that the Ohio growers take rank, and ere long will supply the
vast demand made upon them for their great cutting variety.

[Illustration: Ohio tobacco field.]

With a degree of pride peculiar to all tobacco growers, (when any new
variety has originated,) they point with no little egotism to their
fields of "white tobacco," and ask their fellow-growers of New England
to rival this "great plant." So successful have they been of late with
cutting leaf, that their fields yield them returns not inferior to
many of the choicest tobacco farms on the Connecticut River. The Ohio
growers have one advantage over earlier growers of the plant--their
land has not been cultivated as long as the famous tobacco lands of
the Connecticut valley, and does not require that thorough fertilizing
which is so necessary in New England. Still the tobacco field cannot
be too thoroughly prepared for the growth of tobacco, whether in the
tropics or in the more temperate regions.

In the curing of tobacco, the Ohio growers have but few equals, and no
superiors. At first, the complaint made by the buyers of Ohio tobacco
was, that "Ohio tobacco has the appearance of being too hard fired,
indeed so much so as to have the flavor of being baked." The early
culture of tobacco in the State attracted the attention of tobacco
buyers, especially those who had dealt largely in Maryland leaf