TOBACCO GROWING IN IRELAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 987, 4 May 1911, Page 4

TOBACCO GROWING IN IRELAND.

Latest news from Ireland encourages the hope that the tobacco growing industry there will soon take on a new spell of activity and prosperity, leading to better times for the growers, and the increased employment of men, women and children in manufacture. Colonel Everard, who is at the head of the Irish Tobacco Growers’ Association, gave some particulars of the new development. “Ireland already holds the record for heavy cropping,” he said. We have produced 2241 b per statute acre, and that is a world’s record. “But the new development is in the matter of curing, which is always the most difficult for the uninitiated. Owing to the high

duties the people engaged in the re-handling trade want the minimum of moisture in the tobacco they take. In America the trade sometimes buy with 30 per cent, of moisture, and then reduce it to a minimum of 10 per cent, by means of steam and hydraulic power. “This is all beyond the resources of the ordinary farmer. But the latest discoveries made by experiments in Ireland show that a very simple form of scaffolding on which to hang plants surrounded by canvas guards and roof, is quite sufficient for curing. As a matter of fact the more moistnre there is in the atmosphere the easier it is to cure the product. But the difficulty is to prevent mould. This we now find is entirely prevented by the burning of log fires in these temporary barns. The acid in the smoke kills the mould spores, and tobacco hung for two months, in all kinds of weather, is found to be entirely free from mould.

“The re-handling experiments promoted by the Department of Agriculture enabled the pioneer growers to encourage small farmers to undertake growing, and they provided them with the equipment necessary, sharing in the grant of >£2s an acre.

“The most successful grower made a profit of a statute acre, exclusive of all out-of-pocket expenses, rent, and taxes, and grant. He could never have attempted it unless the pioneer growers had been at his elbow. That the industry is one to be encouraged is proved by the fact that the duty paid on last year’s crop was ,£27,000 sterling, and the return from the factory for the week shows me that the actual sales for that period amounted to ,£4OO. There are 125 acres under the crop, tobacco being grown in the counties of Meath, Louth, Wexford, King’s County, Limerick, Tipperary, and Kilkenny. Now we want the Development Committee to devote their funds to the re-handling, so as to help the small farmers. The average duty paid on the average yield per acre amounts to ,£2lO, and ,£25 an acre would enable re-handling to spread the industry over every country.”

So great is the popularity of Irish-grown tobacco that the produce is being shipped to places as far away as China, while fastidious Americans are having it sold to them under a name which does not reveal its origin, because they prefer it to other kinds.