In 1845 Johann Cornies initiated a tobacco growing project in the Mennonite colonies. It appears that, by fall 1846, the first crop was harvested. There is conflicting information on the success of the project. The GAMEO article on tobacco indicates that the project failed1, while James Urry’s book claims that it was successful2. Interestingly, both sources imply that tobacco was grown only in the Molotschna colony. This list shows that tobacco was also grown in the Chortitza Colony.
The following table gives the names of those who harvested tobacco in the Chortitza colony as of October 20, 1846. According to the Gemeindeberichte of 1848, http://www.odessa3.org/collections/history/link/chortiza.txt, there were 460 farms (hence landowners/Wirte) and 673 landless families with a total of 7,217 people in the Chortitza Colony. If it is assumed that the 111 farmers listed as having harvested tobacco were landowners, then about one quarter of the landowners tried their hand at tobacco growing.
I have kept the exact spellings of first and family names. The varieties of tobacco and amounts of each variety harvested are given in the original document, but not included in this transcription.
1 http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Tobacco
2 Urry, James. None but Saints. Hyprion Press, 1989.
In original order.
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