Pioneers of Connecticut Shade Leaf Tobacco

(International Cigar History Museum) An 1896 USDA Bulletin described the light sandy soil along the Connecticut River to be very much like the soils in which high priced wrapper-grade Sumatran tobacco was grown.
In 1899 the US Department Agriculture sent the Department’s top tobacco expert, Milton L. Floyd, to help study fermentation methods.
Another of Floyd’s duties was to do a detailed analysis of 400 square miles of Connecticut Valley soil from South Glastonbury, Conn., to South Hadley, Mass. Floyd explained the reason behind the Survey: Continued

Photos: Cultivating shade tobacco covered by "fields" of cheesecloth to protect it from the sun. Near Hartford, Connecticut, 1941 (Marion Post Wolcott/Library of Congress).