n St. James Parish. The tobacco
grown in the Parishes of Bossier and Natchitoches is used chiefly by
the growers of the parishes and is fitted for both smoking and snuff.

The Louisiana planters have adopted the method of the French in doing
up their tobacco--twisting it in rolls, or as the French call them,
"Carrots." The planters of St. James Parish annually put up from ten
to fourteen thousand carrots of Perique, each carrot weighing about
four pounds.

Mr. Perique, from whom the tobacco takes its name, made many
improvements in the manner of preparing the tobacco for market, one
of which consisted in taking up the twisted lumps (after remaining in
press for six months), spreading them to fifteen or sixteen inches in
length and having completed four pounds in weight, rolling it into a
lump which retained its shape by means of a rope one-fourth inch in
diameter, tightly twisted around it. The labor in pressing and
twisting is entirely done by hand, and attended to with the most
scrupulous care.

[Illustration: Louisiana tobacco plantation.]

The Creole planters sometimes raise two, and even three crops on the
same field, two of them being the growths of suckers or shoots from
the parent stock or stump. The growers of Perique tobacco have tested
Havana seed, but can see but little difference between the product and
that from Virginia or Kentucky tobacco seed, while the growth is much
smaller. In color Louisiana tobacco is very dark, entirely different
from any other variety grown in the Mississippi valley.

Some few years since tobacco culture was introduced into California,
and the belief then entertained by those who planted the consoling
weed, that the state would soon become as famous for raising tobacco
as she now is for producing wheat and gold seem likely to be
realized. The soil and climate of California are admirably adapted for
tobacco. In the valleys the land is a deep alluvial loam, easily
worked, producing bountiful crops of the finest leaf tobacco. The
planters have experimented with several varieties, including Havana,
Florida, Latakia, Hungarian, Mexican, Virginia, Connecticut, Standard
and White leaf. Large crops are grown, especially of Florida tobacco,
which, with careful culture, produces two thousand five hundred pounds
of merchantable leaf to the acre. The planters get their Havana seed
from Cuba, preferring to do so rather than to risk the seed from their
own plants. At first they used home