GROWING TOBACCO

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4219, 4 December 1939, Page 2

GROWING TOBACCO

THE STORY OF HENRY FREEMAN One of the most popular Americans in Canada is Henry Freeman. Why is he popular? Because he has taught the Canadians to grow 75 per cent of the tobacco they buy. He has prevented £8,000,000 a year from going to the United States. He has added it to the income of Canada. About 21 years ago he was given a job by the Canadian Department of Agriculture. One of his jobs was to distribute tobacco seed among Canadian farmers. He was especially interested in tobacco, as he was born and bred in South Carolina. His father was a tobacco grower.. The Canadian farmers knew little or nothing about tobacco growing. They made a poor use of the seed that Freeman sent to them. So he secured permission to start a farm of his own. He found a great tract of sandy land, not far from Niagara Falls. There were a few poverty stricken farmers on this land. The soil was generally regarded as nearly worthless. From the first year Freeman made his farm pay. Eventually he gave up his Government job and launched out as a tobacco grower. He went in for flue cured tobacco. The leaves are cured in kilns by hot air and a steaming process. The nearby farmers gathered round Freeman’s kilns and unanimously decided that he was ‘crazy.” He was “baking his durn stuff to death," "they said. They have a different opinion today. Last year tobacco was grown on 30,000 acres of that sandy waste. There were nearly 50 square miles of tobacco. There are now 1,200 prosperous tobacco farmers, and in 1935 they received £8,000,000 for their tobacco. As for Henry Freeman, he sold his tobacco last year for £ 20,000. Tobacco has been found to be a profitable crop. The land, most of it, was bought for £2 or £3 an acre. Henry Freeman changed a sandy waste Into a prosperous district. Villages have sprung up. A £200,000 tobacco factory is being built. Once more this shows what one man and a new idea can do If he is not afraid of being called “crazy.”