TOBACCOLAND USA

[Music] [Music] deep-rooted in the american people is a wanderlust that each year sends 25 million citizens out to visit new places and see new things public is finding its way to the mild countryside of the south to those regions known everywhere today as tobacco land usa in the heart of u.s tobacco land is the up and coming city of durham north carolina located in a section of the country which has made important contributions to the nation's cultural and economics not far from durham is the town of chapel hill home of the university of north carolina the oldest of all existing state universities it opened its doors in 1795 grown steadily in size and reputation it is today in the top rank of the nation's universities and its student body numbers nearly 4 thousand on the outskirts of the city of durham is famed duke university which took its name from one of the south's most famous families today duke university has resources worth more than 65 million dollars largely through gifts of the late washington duke his heirs and other members of the duke family from all over the world come young men and women to enroll in its undergraduate colleges and to work in its graduate schools of arts and sciences [Music] preserved by duke university as a museum and today a north carolina landmark is the little cottage which was once the home of washington duke one of america's pioneer tobacco traders who helped turn the southeastern countryside into a rich and productive tobacco land today barely 75 years since the pioneering days of the tobacco industry to durham's new federal building every morning goes a messenger carrying a certified check for more than a quarter of a million dollars payable to the u.s treasury this check is for the purchase of the millions of u.s internal revenue tax stamps needed for a single day's output at the durham factories of the lingerton myers tobacco company makers of chesterfield cigarettes from every package of 20 cigarettes uncle sam collects six and a half cents [Music] at durham alone the chesterfield factories cover an area of over 150 acres and regularly employed by ligaton meyers in the making of chesterfield are more than 13 000 men and women skilled tobacco workers whose length of service with chesterfield averages better than 10 years [Music] every visitor to tobacco land finds a tour through the chesterfield factories a memorable adventure for the average u.s citizen knows little about this great american industry which has grown great by providing pleasure for millions [Music] to supply the ever increasing demand for chesterfield each 24 hours seized millions of cartons of cigarettes leaving chesterfield plants in durham richmond virginia and san francisco found for every u.s city and town and for distribution centers in more than 90 foreign countries to preserve the freshness of chesterfields under every condition of climate in any part of the world each package is wrapped scientifically in dupont's number 300 moisture proof cellophane though chesterfields must come off the production line at high speed each packaging machine does its job with the care and precision of a skilled craftsman in tobacco land an even greater marvel of mechanical ingenuity is the cigarette making machine which in one continuous operation turns out its daily quota of millions of perfectly finished chesterfields watching over every factory operation are men and women who by long experience have become experts in the manufacture of fine cigarettes [Music] even older in point of service than most of its other employees are chesterfield's top flight tobacco buyers all of these men have grown up in the tobacco industry and in long years of apprenticeship have gained what every chesterfield buyer must have a thorough knowledge of tobacco markets and an instinctive eye for good tobacco chesterfield buyers regularly cover every market where good cigarette tobacco is bought and sold not only in the us but in the big markets of far-off turkey and greece most domestic tobacco is bought by a system unique in modern industry in the fall farmers bring their tobacco crop to one of several warehouses in centers like durham where the leaf is sold at public auction and to most folk in tobacco land auction time brings pleasure as well as business for among planters warehousemen and buyers there are long established friendships and each year these friendships are pleasantly renewed to the tobacco buyer whose job is to locate and purchase first grade tobaccos auctions mean long and busy days throughout tobacco land at auction time on every warehouse floor stand hundreds of tons of leaf ranging in quality through scores of grades the auctioneer must see everything for in tobacco land auction bids are most often made not by voice but by a wink of the eye or the flick of a finger working at high speed bidding in competition with other buyers from all over the world the chesterfield buyer's judgment is watched with interest and respect at every auction in tobacco land for the decisions of chesterfield men are instantaneous and exact and no tobacco company in the world buys finer leaf than that brought by chesterfield straight from the auction floor the choicest leaf of each year's crop goes to the chesterfield factory to start on its way to becoming the world's finest cigarette modern cigarette making is a complex series of operations evolved from long experience gained since the days when all tobacco was processed by ham and by keeping far in front with every known means of improving their product the manufacturers of chesterfield are today able to preserve the full flavor and mildness of the tobacco leaf to a degree which would have been thought impossible but a generation ago first essential in the handling of choice tobacco is to scientifically condition the tons of leaf purchased from thousands of different farmers bring them all to one uniform standard of moisture content sent through a hot chamber kept at approximately 200 degrees fahrenheit the leaf moving slowly is first completely dried then cooled and finally given the exact amount of moisture necessary for the next process two or more years of aging packed away in great thousand-pound hogsheads standard for the storage and transportation of tobacco since the days of the old virginia colony every pound of leaf is stored away to undergo the highly important process of aging [Music] for aging its tobacco chesterfield maintains vast modern warehouses sheltered from the rain but open to the air on all sides all tobacco men agree that aging and only aging can fully develop mild good-tasting cigarette tobacco no way has ever been found of duplicating the natural processes which take place in tobacco leaf allowed to age from two to four years in warehouses whose natural ventilation is carefully controlled the legend myers tobacco company has more than 130 million dollars tied up in aging tobacco fragrance burley from kentucky the tasty maryland leaf and the mild and full-flavored southern bright the three famous domestic tobaccos which chesterfield has found to be essential for fine cigarettes these hundreds of millions of pounds of choice tobacco have come from thousands of farms throughout u.s tobacco land but for tobacco farmers whose patience and hard work have produced them a new cycle has already begun with plans for a new sowing and a new harvest the responsibilities of last year's crop are over the responsibilities of next year will soon begin [Music] deep in the heart of tobacco land is durham county north carolina home of the ellis family typical of the kind of folks who raise fine tobacco year after year more than 200 alice's live in durham county so many that they have their own church the ellis chapel the alices have lived in durham county for generations longer than any of the family can remember people often say that buren ellis built the chapel but all the alices chipped in to help the reverend miller dunn is the preacher he leads them in a simple and devout service and they sing the old-fashioned hymns which everyone enjoys none of the family would miss church for anything [Music] burren ellis learned tobacco growing from his father on this same farm and his grandfather was a planter before that now he is the oldest of the family nearly 80 and has seven grown sons with families of their own who work to place with him besides being first-rate tobacco planters they're all real farmers too [Music] sometimes the ellis women boast that they do more work than the men even though it is a different kind of work and in a pinch the whole family could get by without ever going off the farm of course some things they have to buy but they're like most tobacco families they're thrifty and then there's something they like better about things raised on the farm to this day they still know how to make their own soap nettie ellis usually does that she seems to have more knack for it than anybody else all the women folk help with the preserves it takes lots of planning to feed eight hungry men three times a day all through the year the ellis women are mighty proud of their preserves and they're apt to put a few jars aside just to show off to visitors but first and foremost job of the ellis family is growing tobacco and that's a job that takes not only planning but plenty of experience and skill the first thing they have to do is bring in their wood there won't be time to cut wood later on and if a tobacco farmer grows southern bright one thing he has to have is wood first for the seed bed and then for curing in the fall oak and pine are mostly used for curing the kind of leaf that grows in durham county on some places nearly half the farm is in wood of course lots of wood is always needed for the kitchen and in winter for the stoves and fireplaces [Music] just before the frost is out of the ground is the time a tobacco farmer starts his seed bed and that's the first thing he needs his wood for because after he breaks the ground it is tough to be burned over to kill the weeds and sterilize the soil and besides wood ash helps the seeds to grow to anyone who doesn't know it's hard to understand how many tobacco plants can be started in one little seed bed but when he sees how small the seeds are it begins to make more sense a tablespoon full of rose seedlings enough to cover six or seven acres when they're transplanted to the fields so they won't come up in bunches and crowd each other out the seeds are mixed with soil before they're sown [Applause] this time of year the seed bed's the most important plot of land that any farmer has and he takes all kinds of pains with it [Music] one thing about tobacco it takes pampering from the day the seeds are in the ground to protect it from cold night air and frost it has to be kept covered while it's young most farmers plant two or three seed beds in the spring just to be sure to have plenty of healthy plants the first week in march is the time to start plowing in durham county there's more land on the place now than when buren ellis and his father farmed it all alone 261 acres a lot as tobacco farms go and all paid for too [Music] by apple blossom time the year's work is pretty well underway tobacco farmers like the early springtime the best of all the seasons the weather's almost always fine then and the real hard work hasn't yet begun buranellus says tobacco growing's changed a lot in his time the u.s department of agriculture and the state agricultural colleges that make a study of tobacco are bound to find out things that farmers never knew before take fertilizer for instance tobacco takes more out of the soil than almost any other crop and to grow good tobacco the soil has to be built up again every year re-fortified with the right kind of minerals the alices put nearly 800 pounds of fertilizer on every acre they plant it costs them 32 a ton but they know from long experience that it's a good investment [Music] [Applause] it's a long about the first week in may but the ellis family has its first real hard day's work that's transplanting day when all the alice's get up way before dawn most people don't realize how much work goes on in a season of tobacco farming they say tobacco just can't have too much care and long hours on the job is the only sure way to raise a first-rate crop farmers like the ellis's know that hard work in the springtime pays good dividends at auction time in the fall so no one minds getting up a little earlier than usual when they have to one reason for starting work so early is to take the seedlings out before the sun gets too hot tobacco plants are delicate when they're small when it's ready to transplant a seedling will come about six inches high only three or four little leaves and hardly bigger than a radish plant it's surprising how tall they'll get by august [Music] transplanting is a ticklish job it doesn't do to put the plants too close together so they choke each other out or too far apart and waste a lot of ground and there's no time for measuring a man just has to have an eye for it it has to be done in a hurry too so that the seedlings don't wilt and die [Music] at that the plants look pretty wilted the first day they're in the ground but they'll pick up at sundown and keep right on growing [Music] by august the plants are nearly five feet high and there's nothing that gives a tobacco farmer more real pleasure than to see a field of big healthy tobacco plants they're his living and he knows what care and hard work it's taken to make them look that way about this time of year is a busy time for tobacco buyers too experienced buyers know that the one sure way of getting the choice leaf at the fall auctions is to go out in the summer and look over the crops first hand [Music] year after year chesterfield's buyers know just about where the best crops are to be found in every state in tobacco land and there's plenty of tobacco to be seen maryland tobacco and burley from kentucky tennessee and as far west as ohio and missouri and the southern bright that grows in virginia and the carolinas and as far south as georgia and florida they almost always catch the alice boys just about at topping time when they're breaking off the tops to keep the plants from going to seed the alices are old friends of chesterfield buyers bob johnson herm mills lyman wilkins and the others they've been doing business together at auctions as long as any of them can remember one of the things the alices are proudest of is how much of their finest tobacco is bought by test revealed every fall the alices are always happy to show off their crops to people who know good tobacco when they see it just about this same time is when the ellis family has its yearly barbecue the whole family has worked on it for days fixing up the roasting pits making hot stuff the pepper sauce for seasoning and the favorite dish always is brunswick stew chicken all mixed up with tomatoes sweet corn and fresh butter beans of course at every barbecue in tobacco land pork is the big dish on the bill affair and the alice's seem to have a way of fixing it that makes it extra good [Music] there's always a lot of joking about whether bob johnson and the other boys from chesterfield come around to see tobacco or because they know it's barbecue time but the family says it wouldn't seem like an alice barbecue without them [Music] for years the ellis barbecue has been the biggest summertime affair in almost all durham county everyone eats too much but they all have a lot of fun even though they know the crops are almost ready to harvest and cure but there are long hard weeks of work ahead from about the first of august to the 15th of september every family in the tobacco country is busy night and day unlike most crops tobacco isn't ripe for harvesting all at the same time knowing just when each leaf is ready for picking and fit for curing is one of the great secrets of raising good tobacco once harvesting begins it goes right on until the whole crop is in and during all these weeks every member of the family has some job to do helping in one way or another to make tobacco [Music] even with all the hands that can be mustered it's long and tiring work but it's work they all like to do the crop is the ellis family's bread and butter and it's the result of a common family effort and a really fine tobacco crop means that everyone has done his share of work all year round curing tobacco is what takes the most experience and where the most risk comes in an average curing barn holds about 1 000 pounds of leaf and the alices with all their acreage find they need about 22 curing barns to handle the crop with auction time getting nearer a farmer begins thinking about prices how crops are in other parts of the tobacco country whether buying will open up for europe and other foreign countries and all the other things that may affect the tobacco market farmers like the ellises though never worry very much about what price their leaf will bring in tobacco land the saying is that if a man takes care of his tobacco his tobacco will take care of him [Music] southern bright tobacco the kind the ellis family grows is cured with heat flu cured they call it [Music] the ovens in the curing barns are connected with sheet iron flues which carry heat to every corner of the barn once the fires are lighted it's a long time before anyone in the family gets back to regular hours it takes nearly four full days and nights to cure a single barn full of tobacco and to keep all the fires going all day and all night is a great big job the inside temperature has got to be just right every minute which means someone always has to be on watch and in spite of all the crops the ellis boys have raised their father still likes to keep an eye on everything that goes on at curing time [Music] a tobacco farmer knows when his leaf is cured by its color and the field and by the time the crop is cured and the fires die out the whole family is ready for a few days off when everybody's had a rest they all get busy again this time sorting the cured leaf and grating it according to quality naturally all tobacco leaf isn't the same even leaves from the same plant are different in size in color and texture of course good weather and good luck help to make a good prop but experience and all year round hard work is what makes a high percentage of real grade a tobacco the alice family are proud of their reputation as growers of the very best tobacco and year after year they take first prizes at the county fair the judges say that no finer leap is grown anywhere that's why so much of every ellis prop is bought by chesterfield [Music] every day from chesterfield's huge durham warehouses where they have been aging for two to four years hundreds of hogsheads of tobacco are moved onto the production line each with its pedigree showing clearly the year of harvest and the locality where the tobacco was grown or this leaf has come not only from the land of buren ellis but from hundreds of farms spread all over tobacco land each leaf brings with it the characteristic flavor and texture of the district in which it grows [Music] hundreds of thousands of pounds of this mild ripe leaf goes through the leaf department of chesterfield factories every 24 hours and here begins the famed chesterfield blending process mixing the leaf which has come from all over tobacco land into chesterfield's right combination from this first blending known as making strip the tobacco passes through a steam-filled conditioning chamber to restore to the leaves the proper amount of moisture all important in the preparation of fine cigarette tobacco dropping automatically to the floor below the leaf is now ready for another important process stemming millions of leaves pass through the stemmery every hour leaf by leaf just as the farmer harvest his crop the machines stripped the endless procession of tobacco [Music] ahead of this leap is one more conditioning in which moisture content is checked before it is sent away for another and final period of aging or in addition to its first years of aging all chesterfield tobacco must spend two to three months more in hogsheads before it is ready for final blending because it gives to the stripped tobacco an extra degree of mildness and flavor found only in the chesterfield blend another important ingredient of chesterfield turkish tobacco comes from the eastern shores of europe's mediterranean sea each year millions of pounds of turkish tobacco is imported by the liggett myers tobacco company europeans and americans first learned of cigarettes from the turks the story goes that the custom of smoking cigarettes was introduced by british army officers who brought them home with them after the crimean war chesterfield's turkish tobacco is stored in bonded warehouses under the supervision of the u.s customs service and on each pound it withdraws from bond chesterfield pays 30 cents import duty to the federal treasury because the turkish leaf is smaller and more delicate than domestic tobacco it must be conditioned and handled with special care more than a dozen types of fine turkish tobacco each with a good characteristic all its own are blended into the exact requirements of the chesterfield formula [Applause] and as important in the chesterfield formula as turkish and southern bright tobaccos are the tobaccos grown in maryland and kentucky and each has been separately blended and cross-blended made ready for the final blending of all the different types of tobacco which in the right combination go into chesterfield for the greatest difference between chesterfields and other cigarettes is in the quality of chesterfield tobacco and the way in which that tobacco is blended next step in the making of cigarettes is the shredding of the blended tobacco leaves by a battery of high-speed rotary cutting machines pressed solidly together the blended tobacco leaf meets spinning blades revolving at a speed of 4 500 times a minute [Music] and when it emerges tobacco grown in turkey and tobacco grown by buranellus and thousands of other farmers in tobacco land usa meet in one single mild and fragrant fling this flynn the licket and myers tobacco company believes gives chesterfield its reputation as the one cigarette with that right combination of tobaccos that is cooler smoking better tasting and definitely milder [Music] to turn out millions of these fine cigarettes chesterfield factories must work at top speed day after day throughout the whole year for the worldwide demand for the cigarette that satisfies knows no season but to the alices and to other folks in tobacco land the end of the tobacco growing season is a time for relaxation and they all look forward to it as the nicest time of the year when the children's friends from college get back for the holidays they drop in to visit as often as they can it's about the only time of the year when they can all get together and it's pleasure time at home [Music] [Applause] it's the time for football too when everyone throughout the whole country is looking forward to some of the season's biggest games like the annual duke north carolina game almost every family in tobacco land has a youngster of college aid and they're pretty evenly divided in their allegiance to one college or another and before every big game there is always a midnight rally no social functions in all tobacco land are more important to the young people than the college dancers the night before a football game every year 50 000 people from every part of the u.s gather for tobacco land's game of games in tobacco land where the tradition of tobacco is almost a culture and a way of life more smokers all the time are turning by choice to chesterfield [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] not only in tobacco land but wherever cigarettes are smoked chesterfield the cigarette that satisfies is a welcome companion [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] for today more than ever chesterfields are giving real smoking pleasure to men and women a walk of life and in every corner of the world make your next fact chesterfield you can't buy a better cigarette [Music] you