Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1911 — WILL TRY TENT-GROWN LEAF [ARTICLE]

WILL TRY TENT-GROWN LEAF

Connecticut Valley Tobacco Raisers Revive Enthuslaenf for lt—Recalls Experience. Sprfagfield, Mass. —The revival of the tent-grown tobaceo proposition on a large scale In the Connecticut valley recalls the disastrous experience of farmers and others seven or eight years ago. The present assertion of promoters of shade-grown tobacco enterprlses Is that, profiting by the past, experts have succeeded in producing a strain of wrapper leaf that defies competition, that this tobacco is better and cheaper than Sumatra tobacco, that it passes readily for a high grade of Havana leaf and is in great demand for wrapping clear Havana cigars. The prediction that upward of three thousand acres of tobacco will be raised under cloth in the Connecticut valley this year probably Insures a crop of sufficient sire to determine In a single season whether the tentgrown tobacco advocates actually have the defects which characterized the crops of 1902 and 1903. In the last few years the attention of the shade, grown contingent has been concentrated on Cuban tobacco. The Connecticut Tobacco Corporation, of East Granby, has raised 150 acres of the Cuban tobacco under cloth and the leaves have proved A 1 wrapper, stock. One or two smaller companies have also raised satisfactory crops. That important Interests believe Cubr.n tobacco Is adaptable to the Connecticut valley is evidenced by the entrance of the American Sumatra Tobacco company, and a dozen smaller syndicates have completed arrangements to raise crops of from 50 to 150 acres.