North Carolina Tobacco
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Unlike rice, which many people would not normally associate with North Carolina, tobacco is. Tobacco was a New World crop that influenced North Carolina because of its demand by the Old World. This lead to tobacco becoming one of the first cash crops that was grown in the united states. In the 1700s tobacco became a very important commodity and by 1727 40 million pounds of tobacco were shipped to Great Britain(Hemphill II, 1996-2011). The British would often import the tobacco from the colonies and then re-exported the tobacco sometimes up to 80%, and turned a nice profit on the tobacco(Johnson, 1984). All stages of production farming, processing, manufacturing and other related businesses became prominent in North Carolina. With the emergence of major cigarette companies, the tobacco industry exploded. Many major companies in conjunction with the thousands of tobacco farms in North Carolina made their home there. One example of this is R.J. Reynolds, which is the second biggest tobacco company in the country and makes its home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina(Tilley, 1985). North Carolina, with its gifted ability to grow tobacco, gained great prosperity from this crop. This was not a crop that the Old World pioneers brought with them, but rather one that they wanted to bring back to the Old World. The strong influence of this demand by the Old World can still be seen throughout the state of North Carolina today, which has many tobacco farms and factories throughout the state.