The High Stakes of Tobacco Farming in Snohomish County
A rural columnist weighs in on the local obsession with hop-growing and the high-risk, high-reward prospect of cultivating tobacco in the late 19th-century Pacific Northwest.
The story, cleaned up
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A correspondent from Snohomish county writes: 'Nearly everybody in this vicinity is going into hops.' I don't propose to go with the crowd if I can get information that will justify me in trying something else, and then inquires of me about tobacco culture. Some years ago I tried tobacco—several acres—and repeated the experiment even to the third year. While not wholly condemning it as entirely impracticable, the multitude of cares, unreliability of skilled labor, and the development of the fact that it could not be done save by a heavy outlay that was penal and of no value for anything else, I gave up the experiment.
A gentleman of this valley, Mr. T. F. Patton of Alderton, is now engaged in raising tobacco. My own opinion is that we produce a very superior tobacco for cigars. I have rolled up cigars and had a milder, pleasanter smoke than ever I got from cigars in saloons or stores. Tobacco seed should be in the hot bed now, to insure early plants in time for planting. Early planting is necessary to insure the crop to mature in time to escape frost. At best, I think tobacco culture here is yet in the experimental stage. Mr. Patton closes his letter with the remark that the tobacco business is in its infancy now, but I think it will be big enough to walk soon; so you see I am living in hopes of a grand success.
“It is the man, and not the seed, that runs out. If every farmer would be as careful in the saving of seed as the careful man is of his cash, there would be no running out of seed.”
This piece highlights the volatility of Washington's agricultural economy—then dominated by hops and speculative crops like tobacco, now shifting between tech-driven growth and various land-use pressures. Just as farmers were warned about the 'heavy outlay' of starting a new crop, today's local growers face the immense financial barrier to entry of skyrocketing land prices in the shadow of Seattle's expansion.
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