Tobacco industry adapts to world of fewer smokers

(Tennessean) By any name or variety you choose — call it snuff, dip, chew or plug — smokeless tobacco is making a comeback, and Tennessee farmers, factory workers and consumers are playing a major role in the renewed buzz.
Farmers here and in Kentucky who once made a good living off raising burley tobacco for cigarettes have had to eliminate 40 percent of acreage devoted to that crop as demand has declined, while farmers who cultivate the dark tobacco used for chewing have been able to expand their fields by 22 percent in three years.
Now, the massive marketing muscle of the nation's biggest tobacco companies — Altria Group and its subsidiary Philip Morris USA, which owns the 100-year-old U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. factory within view of the state Capitol, and R.J. Reynolds, which runs its smokeless operations out of a Memphis factory — are battling for market dominance. Continued

Photo: Formosa. Chewing tobacco. Spence Brothers and Co., Cincinnati, OH, circa 1872 (Library of Congress).