I.—A Manufacturer's Experience.

The way to produce a superior class of locally-grown leaf tobacco, and the manufacture thereof, form a subject well worthy attention. At present the Tobacco Act of 1879, and the amended Acts of later dates, are so prohibitive and oppressive that persons who are thoroughly qualified to carry out tobacco culture to a successful issue do not feel disposed to enter into it and be heavily taxed whilst experimenting as to the best means of producing the superior classes of leaf at the lowest cost of production. However, there is a change coming, and while it is slowly moving onward I would have some enterprising person take the initiative in this industry, by carefully endeavouring to produce a prime tobacco seed thoroughly acclimatised.

It is a well-known fact that the early growers in Victoria rushed into planting in such a thoughtless manner that many of them lost considerably, at the same time doing the industry incalculable harm. They had no knowledge of tobacco culture, or where the seed they were planting came from. It was tobacco seed, that was sufficient—just sufficient for failure.

As far as I have seen the small experimentalists here are travelling at a slower pace, but over the same ground journeyed over by the Victorians, in proof of which I will state a few cases in point. Some years since I received samples of leaf from growers in the province of Nelson. Enclosed in one of the samples was a note intimating that the holder would dispose of all the leaf in hand at eighteen pence per lb. It was not worth one cent per cwt. On another occasion I was informed that a person at Papakura was growing leaf of superior quality and manufacturing a splendid sample of goods in the shape of cigars, cake tobacco, shag, and snuff. Feeling considerably interested in the tobacco business in all its branches, I induced my informant to procure for me samples of the goods. In due course they arrived. I certainly was thoroughly astonished at the would-be manufacturer's stupidity in page 5 attempting to overcome one of the impossibilities of tobacco making. The hitch occurred in endeavouring to produce the four lines from one kind of leaf. Nobody can do it, that is, and produce articles of any commercial value. The cigars were of a greenish cast, evidently made from unripe and half-cured leaf, rolled as hard as wire nails and as smooth, with about a wire nail's capacity for smoking. When burnt on a fire they emitted a stench that would have strangled an elephant. The other goods were about equal to the cigars. A manufacturer can produce cigars and snuff from one kind of leaf. He can also make shag and cake from one sample of leaf; but he cannot make cigars, cake and shag tobaccos from any one kind of leaf extant. Good cake and shag are returned only from one kind of leaf, called Virginia ground leaf or leaf from that seed, nor can any person make saleable cake or shag from the best or any other quality of Havana leaf. Many growers have shown leaf to me, and asked my opinion as to its quality and value. In most cases my answer has been: "It will do very well for sheep wash, and is just worth sheep wash prices and not a penny more."Some years since a person in Wellington asked my opinion about the quality of some leaf, grown, I think he said, by some Chinamen on the east coast of this island. My opinion being unfavorable he abandoned the idea of converting it into cigars. As well he did so, for the leaf was grown from low class South Sea Island seed, which produces a coarse large, thick veined, yellowish brown leaf, utterly unfit for manufacturing purposes. There is tobacco seed and tobacco seed. A single seed from a first-class yarrow plant would be worth £500 to any person in New Zealand, providing it would mature; the leaf, if sound, would be worth from fifteen to twenty shillings per lb. There are other seeds that I would not give five cents for five hundred bushels of them. Such being the case it must be patent to anyone that to succeed a planter must start with the proper seeds for specific purposes, supplemented by the requisite knowledge of planting, which can only be obtained by visiting the tobacco-growing countries. You certainly can obtain seeds from your consuls and friends in America; but I have seen so many failures from seeds so procured, that I would not trust to them. Consuls and friends, though living in tobacco-growing countries, may not know the difference between Bull Tongue and Cuba. One step of that kind would entail years of profitless labor, with failure, utter and complete, in the end. I was once a victim to this kind of misplaced confidence. It occurred in this way: Being in the manufacturing business, and at that particular time unable to get leaf from any of the surrounding colonies to please me, as I wanted to make a cigar which would sell for at least £20 page 6 per thousand, I decided to send to San Francisco for a bale of the best Havana. After sending three times, at the end of the eleventh month from the date of the first order, I received a bale of leaf laid on the cigar tables ready for making up. It cost 15s. 6d. per lb; it was a medium sample of leaf, but not anything like what I ought to have received for the money. Not satisfied, and determined to succeed, I sent an order accompanied with strict instructions as to the leaf required. In due time I received a bale; the first was medium good, the second was decidedly rotten. The agent who bought the leaf was a general seeds merchant, totally unacquainted with leaf tobacco.

To make the matter worse for me the holder would not ship it unless paid for on the spot. That bale was a dead loss. Twelve months' time and £140 lost by sending for what I ought to have gone and purchased. When a person has decided to do anything, and has carefully weighed the chances for and against the undertaking, it is very unsatisfactory afterwards to discover that the first move spoilt the whole scheme. Such was the case, however. Had I gone and purchased the leaf, the cost would have been less and the undertaking would have succeeded, instead of which it "treed the coon."

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