The Production of Cigar-Wrapper Tobacco Under Shade in the Connecticut Valley is a 1908 booklet written by J.B. Stewart for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These types of booklets were common around the turn of the century as the United States wanted to improve the quality and yield of tobacco in the country.
The author of this booklet claims, “The method of producing tobacco under shade originated in Florida about 1896”1 and that it didn’t become popular quickly, but demand increased when the quality became understood. In 1900, the USDA experimented with shade-grown tobacco in the Connecticut Valley using Florida Sumatra seed tobacco. Lo and behold, “The judges who examined the tobacco, as well as the manufacturers who used it, pronounced it equal, if not superior, to the tobacco imported from the island of Sumatra.”1
Because of this quality, there was a huge boom in interest in growing shaded tobacco in the Connecticut Valley: “Raising tobacco in Connecticut under shade was a surer road to riches than digging the yellow metal from the richest mines in the Rocky Mountains. Consequently, stock companies for growing tobacco were formed, and almost every farmer who could borrow a few thousand dollars grew shade tobacco.”2 In 1902, the crops failed dramatically. “Many of the companies and some of the farmers went into bankruptcy and sold their shade tobacco at a loss from 75 to 90 per cent.”2
What had gone wrong? It turns out quite a lot had gone wrong, starting with the quality of plants that were used and continuing from there. This booklet was the product of years of studying what went wrong and how to grow it correctly, and the booklet was provided to the farmers so they could successfully grow cigar tobacco. It goes through the entire process, step by step, to give the farmers the information they needed to produce a good crop.
The Production of Cigar-Wrapper Tobacco Under Shade in the Connecticut Valley is in the public domain and can be read for free at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.