Description

The origin of White Burley tobacco was credited to a Mr. Webb in ***4, who grew it near Higginsport, Ohio, from seed from Bracken County, Kentucky. He noticed it yielded a different type of light leaf shaded from white to yellow, and cured differently. By ***6, he harvested *0,**0 pounds of Burley tobacco and sold it in ***7 at the St. Louis Fair for $*8 per hundred pounds. By ***3, the principal market for this tobacco was Cincinnati, but it was grown throughout central Kentucky and Middle Tennessee. In ***0 Kentucky produced *6 percent of the total national tobacco production, and was first in the country, with nearly twice as much tobacco produced as by Virginia, then the second-place state.

Burley tobacco is a light air-cured tobacco used primarily for cigarette production. In the United States, it is produced in an eight-state belt with approximately *0 percent produced in Kentucky. Tennessee produces approximately *0 percent, with smaller amounts produced in Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. Burley tobacco is produced in many other countries, with major production in Brazil, Malawi and Argentina. In the U.S., burley tobacco plants are started from pelletized seeds placed in polystyrene trays floated on a bed of fertilized water in March or April.