Tobacco As A Tropical Crop

Sumatran Lesson Might be Applied to New Guinea

11/ITHIN a 25 miles radius of the town of Medan, in north-east Sumatra, a narrow strip of land between moun tains and sea, produced a type of tobacco that made the finest cigar wrappers in the world—the colour, smooth surface and aroma that is calculated to make cigar smokers roll their eyes in ecstasy.

A happy combination of circumstances made this district suited to the culti vation of tobacco: the correct amount of rainfall, sunshine, humidity and a vol canic soil. After absorbing the climatic and agricultural statistics relating to this Sumatran district, a good Territorian is struck by the thought: “What has Sumatra that New Guinea has not?”

The answer might well be: “Plenty!”— but, for what it is worth, a condensation of an article which appears in “Knicker bocker Weekly” (the journal of Free Netherlands, published in New York) follows. It is of interest to Territorians who can foresee a world where copra is no longer king. fIIHE soils of this tobacco growing dis- X trict of Sumatra are primarily of volcanic origin, rich in minerals and underlaid with older marine rocks or sediments. They vary in colour from red to brown, and from grey to black, and in texture from clay loams to sandy loams.

The temperature in the district is uni form throughout the year and the daily range is small. The yearly average is 78 deg. Fahr., varying only 4 deg. between the coolest and hottest months. The daily fluctuations throughout the year average about 15 deg. Fahr.

Particularly important, from the tobacco growing angle, is the relatively

high humidity throughout the year. It averages 84 per cent, and varies only from 82 to 85 per cent. Another im portant factor is the sunshine, averaging 60 per cent, for the year.

The rainfall is relatively heavy: a yearly average of about 103 inches.

There are no definite wet and dry seasons. (Compare this with New Guinea: Average rainfall 100-125 inches, according to district; average temperature (coastal areas), 79 to 81 deg.—humidity approxi mately the same; no definite wet or dry season.) Experience has proved that it is only practicable to grow one crop every eight years in the same area in Sumatra, be cause the tobacco plant, which grows to maturity in three months, takes so much nourishment out of the soil. Even then, although the land is allowed to lie fallow for seven years, the soil does not regain all its nutritive qualities, and artificial fertilisers have to be used extensively.

In the tropics, where jungle foliage seems to spring up overnight, a great deal of work is necessary to prepare a new area of land for planting. This in volves chopping down the tall trees, burning the trunks and all the under brush, digging out the larger roots left in the ground, and finally installing a drainage system. It takes about six months to prepare a 700-acre, entirely new section for planting, and about three months to clear a section which has not been disturbed for seven years and has been allowed to grow back to jungle. fIIHE tobacco seeds are first sown in beds X built up on newly cleared land, about one foot above the original level.

These beds are covered with a light muslin about three feet high to prevent damage to the young plants by heavy rains and sunshine and to keep off the insects. Often the soil is treated with steam for disease control. After 40 to 45 days, the seedling is developed and strong enough to be transplanted to the open field.

The seedlings are placed in the ground in rows 40 inches apart with a distance of U feet between each plant. Once the plant is firmly imbedded in the field, it grows rapidly and 60 days after the transplanting, harvesting can be started.

During the first 25 years of tobacco growing in Sumatra, the whole stalk was cut off and hung upside down in a dry ing shed. This method proved to be most unsatisfactory, making the leaves thick, dark and oily. After years of experi menting, it was found that the only way to obtain a ripe and thin leaf—so neces sary for a good cigar wrapper—was to pick the leaves individually as they ripened. Picking begins with the three or four “sand leaves” nearest the ground, then progresses upwards at intervals of several days until 18 or 20 leaves have been picked from a particular stalk.

Generally, the top leaves are not picked, as they are too thick and heavy for the cigar wrappers. It has been discovered that by picking them in the early morn ing when still wet from the dew, a finer texture and better coloured leaf was ob tained after the curing process.

The harvested leaves are placed in baskets and carried to the drying sheds where the lengthy process of curing be gins. The leaves are carefully examined for defects and insects and then strung on string, each end of which is tied to a bamboo pole. The leaves are kept for 18 to 22 days in the drying sheds, and by the end of this period have partially dried out and have become light greenish or yellow in colour, which marks the be

ginning of the curing and fermentation process.

These partially dried leaves are then taken off the bamboo poles, stacked into bundles and sent to the fermentation shed. Here the tobacco is laid, bundle upon bundle, in huge piles or “bulks,” the pressure of the top layers soon beginning to generate heat. Thermometers, placed inside the bulks, control the fermenting process; the temperature at the centre of the bulk reaches 117 to 124 deg. Fahr. befbre the bulks are re-built, so that all the leaves alternate in position between the centre and the outside of the bulk.

Rebuilding repeated several times, and this “sweating” mysteriously enhances the flavour of the leaf.

AFTER about three months, the curing is completed, the bulks are tom down and the leaves shaken out.

Then they are carefully graded by Chinese and Javanese labourers and sorted into some 24 grades, depending on colour, texture, thickness, mutilation, etc.

After the sorting, the leaves are mea sured, arranged in three different lengths, and tied into bundles of 40 leaves. Then the bundles are packed in bales of 170 pounds in mats made of palm leaves.

The tobacco is then ready for shipment.

BEFORE the Japanese invasion large quantities of tobacco were also grown in later years by natives and by European enterprise in Java also.

Soil, climate and labour conditions are ouite different in Java. While in Sumatra the ground, once planted with tobacco, had to be left fallow for seven years; in Java this was found to be un necessary. There tobacco can be grown in the same fields at intervals of tWO ( years.

This island has a definite rainy season; the crop is grown from July through October and harvested in November and December.

About five years before the outbreak of World War II about 50,000 acres of bright Virginia leaf was grown also. This enter prise was very successful, and European companies, the British American Tobacco Company and the natives were all en gaged in growing this acreage. This tobacco was used for home consumption, with the result that the cigarette pro duction and consumption in the Nether lands East Indies was increased tremen dously.

The total export of tobacco from the Netherlands East Indies in 1938 was; Sumatra, 117,000 bales of 170 lb.; Java, 358,000 bales of 182-220 lb.