TOBACCO INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 155, 27 March 1926, Page 21

TOBACCO INDUSTRY

HOW AMERICA GAINED MONOPOLY.

Last year’s tobacco crop on the farm of Mr A, J. Brandon, of Redfield, Church Crookham, Hampshire, has just been sold for .£4.000. . This is believed to be the biggest English crop since the days of Charles 11. Before the war English grown tobacco was mainly used for blending purposes, but it was suggested that an English brand of cigarettes a.nd smoking tobacco might with advantage be put upon the market. At one time England grew most ot the tobacco which was consumed in the curious little clay pipes which are so oil"’! '’l'" 0 >’ l’en o-p !lv vt rnc IPad'’ That was about the middle of the 17th century, but in I‘ifiO its growth in these islands was prohibited, in order that Virginia and other American colonies might have a bigger market for their nrodnce and be able to buy British goods. , Oddly enough, the. embargo on the growing of tolincco in England, except on a purely experimental scale, was not removed until 1910. Ireland, however, grew quite a lot. and Nationalist, members endangered their popularity in the House of Commons by _ presenting the English members with cigarettes ‘ made n Donegal ” ' Fifteen years ago several plantations were started, mostly in Sussex anc ! Hamnshire, encouraged bv the rebate of one-third of the then light duty. This preference withdrawn in 1913, but some of the farms carried on.