Tobacco Documents Online

average 21 cents per pound had been paid for Associa- tion Burley. Warehouses in Burley districts in Kentucky and other states had been acquired by the Association which also graded, redried and stored tobacco. For the first six years of its existence the Association sold more than 100 million pounds annually. Then, from about 1925, members began to withdraw from the Association and from other pooling organiza- tions. There were several reasons for the lack of mem- bership interest and the consequent decline of coopera- tive groups. Chief of these lay in the simple fact that a farmer selling directly at auction was paid at once for his product. When his leaf went to the cooperative pool he had to wait for a brief period after it was sold. A majority of Association members refused to sign a new five-year contract in 1926, whereupon the organization discontinued its operations. Yet it retained its properties and continued its corporate structure. The modern look The last hogsheads of leaf sold at auction in Kentucky had been rolled off the warehouse floors during the 1929- 1930 season. No one, except perhaps the coopers, was sorry to see them go. In varying sizes they had been on the farm scene in tobacco colonies since their earliest settlements. They had made the primitive routes for land passage that developed into major highways. Now that they were gone, everyone concerned with growing and selling tobacco agreed that loose leaf in hands, placed in baskets on auction floors, looked better, smelled "sweet- er," and sold better than in hogsheads. Other changes were taking place. For some time the area just south of Henderson had been known as the "stemming district," as tobacco from that section had 58

had the woody stem and midrib removed ( stemmed ) before packing. Nearly all of this fire-cured leaf, pro- duced in northwestern Kentucky, was exported to Eu- rope. But by 1949, when its harvests had been reduced to under 100,000 pounds-it had been even lower in the earlier '40's -cultivation of this type was abandoned. Green River tobacco and fire-cured types from other Kentucky areas were as acceptable to foreign buyers and domestic manufacturers of snuff. vounsel, controls, cooperation Several efforts had been made in the early 1930's to revive tobacco-farmer cooperatives. A few got off to a flourishing start but none of these early successes was maintained. Government interest in the agrarian and economic problems of farmers became intensified during the de- pression years and developed into programs of allot- ments and price supports. Tobacco as a basic com- modity, soil conservation, parity, the AAA and the Commodity Credit Corporation, marketing quotas and referendums were terms and conditions that became part of the lives of farmers and sometimes a part of their vocabulary. Somehow, through the years of adjusting themselves to government counsel and controls, busy tobacco farm- ers found time to get to meetings where their economic status was under discussion. As a result of such meetings the practical operations of the twenty-year-old Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association were re- newed in 1941. Other tobacco-farmers' organizations followed and now work closely with government agen- cies that are concerned with agricultural prices under the federal stabilization program. 59

The Burley flavor During the decade to 1960 there was a higher yield per acre from Kentucky's tobacco farms though acreage dropped from 312,000 acres to 197,000. Good leaf prices prevailed. Domestic cigarette production rose from about 419 billion in 1951 to just under 507 billion in 1960. In the same period filter-tip cigarettes went from 0.8 percent of the market to 52.4 percent. Consumer use of all tobacco commodities rose or were maintained in 1961. Kentucky leaf is to be found in all of these products. The latest official estimate of domestic cigarette production in 1961 records an ad- vance to over 528 billion. Americans are maintaining their reputation as the largest consumers of tobacco anywhere and they clearly show their preference for what is still referred to in the States as "the Burley blend." From the earliest period of settlement tobacco has had a powerful influence in shaping the economic and social life of the Bluegrass State. Its potential as a commercial crop furthered emigra- tion from other parts of the Union and from Europe for many decades. Its realization as a salable agricultural product was an important element in fixing settlers in the soil, in building new towns and roads. Kentucky's tobacco crops had an exceptional influence in develop- ing the "new West's" first export trade. The annual harvests of desirable leaf created markets that drew buyers from home and abroad. And after Bur- ley became the major product of Kentucky farms, it had the world as its outlet. In the fields, the auction ware- houses, the factories, along the transportation highways, and in retail shops, Kentucky tobacco remains a vital element in the healthy economic life of the state. 60

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