Virginia tobacco cultivation near Manila promises well

Title

Language

English

Year

1934

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

Goldleaf Tobacco Company's second crop large, and plowing underway for 800 to 1,000 acres next season. Turkish leaf grown too.

Fulltext

June, 1934 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 7 Virginia Tobacco Cultivation Near Manila Promises Well Goldleaf Tobacco Company's second crop large, and plowing underway for 800 to 1,000 acres next season. Turkish leaf grown too The illustrations on this page are among the most significant this magazine has published. They de monstrate not only the establishment of a new branch of the islands’ to bacco industry, that of growing tobacco for the modern cigarette, but also a most practical outcome of cooperation between a plantation company and the government’s agricul ture experts. They show Virginia and Orinoco to bacco growing in the fields of the Goldleaf Tobacco Company on its plantation at kilometer 27 on the Novaliches road presently terminating at the Angat river. To prepare this paper, this plan tation was visited. Harvesting is in full swing. Cured leaves are of a uniform golden color. Larger fields are being put into tilth for next season’s planting, expected to cover from 800 to 1,000 acres. Judge John W. Haussermann is president of the company; other directors are J. P. Heilbronn, head of the paper company bearing his name, and of Botica Boie; Santiago Carrion, a leading Manila cigar and cigarette manufacturer; Otto Frauendorff, manager of Aguado Hermanos, and T. P. Lim, manager of a cigarette company here. F. A. Kretzschmar manages the plantation, the extensive Novaliches estate, piedmont formation, the home of Mr. Frauendorff, first to notice its possibilities for tobacco. The market for such tobacco is worldwide. The local demand steadily grows, is now between the value of 1 * 5,000,000 and 1 * 5,500,000 a year, compar ing with 1 * 4,000,000 in 1931. Manager Kretzschmar’s tobacco-growing experience in the Philippines, prior to his connection with this company at Manila, was in the Cagayan valley during a period of 5 years. He is at the prime of life. He also has an experienced assistant. Under efforts of Dr. Manuel L. Roxas while heading the old plant industry bu reau, and of Domingo Paguirigan of the tobacco sectipn of that bureau, Virginia tobacco has been experimented with on Luzon from the Cagayan valley, where it was first tried in 1924, to the experiment station at Alabang. The results wished for were only obtained at Alabang, for the Virginia leaf grown there proved to have a nicotine content, Manager Kretzschmar says, averaging 1-1 /2%, so low that the tobacco when used in cigarettes needs no toning down with Turkish leaf. In the Ilokos region, as the experiments moved toward Manila, the nicotine content was too low. The Alabang leaf being satisfactory, there was assurance that leaf grown on the Novaliches ( state would be satisfactory too, the climate of the two places being the same. Such are Manager Kretzschmar’s assertions. To the eye, the leaf being cured now bea s out his claims fully. All leaves Upper left, field of Virginie tobacco; upper right, field of Orinoco tobacco; center, field of Turkish to bacco; below, leaves of Virginia tobacco showing their mature size. Goldleaf Tobacco Company’s Novaliches plantation. are large, fully mature, uniformly golden in color. The pictures show the vigor of the plants; the man in the pictures is more than 6 feet tall. Uniformly mature leaves come of picking the to bacco leaf by leaf, as maturity occurs; mature ones being plucked off, the younger ones receive the full strength of the stalk and mature in their turn. This is said to be in con trast with methods in Vir ginia and Carolina, where gathering is done by pluck ing the stalk with leaves both mature and young on it. The leaf-by-leaf method gives maximum yield, and both the surety of a consistently dry harvesting season and cheaper labor—family labor, employed the year round—make it feasible at Novaliches. Manager Kretzschmar reckons the climate here a decisive factor in the success of this new branch of the Philippine tobacco industry. Making possible the employment of families throughout the year, it settles the labor permanently on the estate; and the legume crops, grown during off-season months, replenish the soil’s fertility so that year after year the same fields can be utilized for tobacco without wearing them out. But besides the Virginia tobacco, main objective of the estate, Orinoco and Turkish tobaccos have been produced this season with favorable promise. Trial crops were grown during the 1932-1933 season. All being well, commercial areas were seeded for the 1933-1934 crop now yielding a heavy harvest. Fields are prepared by tractor power, oxen pull the cultivators. The rolling surface of the fields precludes drainage problems. One thing to be noted in connection with the current crop is that, heavy as it is, it suffered from the excep tional dry weather of November and December. Offsetting this have been the showers persisting during the first months of this year, showers that were hardly needed for the crop’s maturing. Officers of the company have no idea of resting with the production during next season of a crop from 800 or 1,000 acres only. They plan putting the entire estate, some 5,000 acres, into tobacco as early as possible; and, looking to the welfare of the industry, they are encouraging neighboring owners to study their methods of planting, cultivation and curing, and to plant cigarette tobaccos, Virginia particulary, as the crop of main dependence. The effort helps in the so lution of the Ilokos migration problem, intensified by the pause in Hawaii’s labor demands and the exclusion of Phil ippine labor from the States under the new commonwealth independence act. Some 150 to 200 Ilokos families will be settled on the estate to produce next season’s crop.

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