Tobacco Culture in Ohio is a 1912 booklet written by A.D. Selby and True Houser and published by the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. Many similar booklets were written throughout different states in the 1890s and early 1900s, with the goal of helping farmers grow the best tobacco.
The authors begin with the history of tobacco in Ohio, noting that, “In 1750 Captain Christopher Gist found tobacco being grown by a tribe of Indians at Shawneestown, the present site of Portsmouth, Ohio. Marquette and La Salle later reported its cultivation by the Indians along the Mississippi rivers as well as their tributaries.”1 Selby and Houser claim the tobacco grown by the native populations was Nicotiana tabacum, which is an interesting claim. We know from many sources that Nicotiana tabacum is not native to the United States; the type of tobacco originally grown in the Ohio region would likely have been Nicotiana rustica or Nicotiana quadrivalvis.2 So it’s either the case that the authors are incorrect about the type of tobacco grown by native populations, or it’s the case that upon its first cultivation in America in 1612, Nicotiana tabacum spread across native populations more quickly than white settlers spread across the country.
When tobacco cultivation by white settlers began in Ohio, it was mostly grown on the eastern side of the state. The tobacco grown in Ohio had the right characteristics for export. The authors go into depth about the harvesting and curing of tobacco in Ohio and how it was done – the methods will look familiar to modern cigar enthusiasts, though apparently they were not used frequently in the United States at the time.
Starting in 1838, the Miami Valley was planted with cigar filler tobacco and became known as the Seedleaf District or the Cigar Filler District, and started with seeds brought from Connecticut. The district produced Connecticut Seedleaf and Zimmer Spanish varieties.3 Wayne County and Medina County also had a small tobacco district that produced cigar binder and wrapper tobaccos. There were non-cigar types produced as well, and in significant quantities.
The authors make special mention of the Zimmer Spanish variety of tobacco and its growth (and growth in popularity) in Ohio: “It, too, has seen the development of a special variety, that called Zimmer Spanish, which was introduced into the district in 1869, and whose production probably culminated soon after 1900…The Zimmer Spanish, as elsewhere described, is a quick growing tobacco of upright habit, producing in this district only moderate yields of good domestic filler.”4
The booklet dives into the methods of cultivation and preparation of tobacco. It includes information about fertilization, preparing seed beds, cultivating, cutting, curing, and all other aspects of the operation. As would be expected from a booklet that offers advice to farmers, it includes data from experiments about how to get high yields of qualify leaf.
The booklet also dives into specific types of tobacco grown in Ohio, providing quite a lot of information about some of them.
Tobacco Culture in Ohio is in the public domain and can be read for free on Google Books as part of a series of booklets from the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. When you open the document, flip to page 261 using the Google Books toolbar. Tobacco Culture in Ohio begins there.