Tobacciana
     PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH TOBACCO FARMING        





    "Tobacciana" is the new word for collecting memoribilia about the origins, growing, and marketing of tobacco.  TOBACCO was a good source of cash for the early Pennsylvania Dutch farmers.  There were some things that you couldn't raise or make on your own farm.  You had to buy these things with cash.  Tobacco was actually easier to sell and more profitable than cotton.  There were cigar makers in both Reading (e.g. see Y-B Cigars picture above) and Philadelphia (e.g. Phillies Cigars) that were eager to buy dutch tobacco grown near the Susquehanna and Schuylkill Rivers.  At the end of the 19th century, as Philadelphia manufactured more tobacco products, Cuban and Puerto Rican cigar makers settled in the area.  Cigar Makers International Union was formed in 1877 and it had mainly Spanish speaking members.  By 1930, Pennsylvania Dutch tobacco production ranked third behind Kentucky and Virginia.  To ensure sustainable agriculture, Pennsylvania Dutch Tobacco  was worked into the Pennsylvania Dutch farmer's regular sustainable agricultural crop rotations: hay-corn-tobacco-wheat, hay-corn-tobacco-wheat.  It should be emphasized that the tobacco was planted to keep the farm financially solvent (by providing cash) and to keep the soil rich as a growing medium for sustainable agriculture (also thereby ensuring solvency).
                             

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