Profitable Farming

The Clarksville Tobacco Plant says; “Capt. A. SLADE, of Caswell, N.C. and his two brothers, have sold their entire crops of Tobacco, lugs included, to a Lynchburg manufacturer, for the extraordinary price of $35 per hundred lbs. Capt. SLADE, estimates his crop at 18,000 or 20,000 lbs. It is the product of the labor of some ten hands. If it should turn out to be 20,000 lbs he will realize from each laborer the unprecedented sum of $700. Can the cotton fields of Louisiana, the sugar plantations of Cuba, the rice fields or the turpentine districts of the Carolinas, boast of larger profits?

The Tobacco which commands these prices is of a very fine texture, but its chief claim to superior excellence is attributable to the mode of curing. Of this mode we can give the public no more satisfactory exposition than that charcoal is the fuel used.”

Source:  Fayetteville Observer, February 16, 1857