164 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF TOBACCO. 



knee, no material damage will be done, provided the leaf does not 

 crumble. A little attention will soon teach the most ignorant the 

 proper order for safe-keeping. The tobacco will be safe in bulk, 

 and will wait the planter's convenience to prize it in hogsheads. 



In prizing, the different qualities should not be mixed ; and if 

 the planter has been careful to keep them separated, no trouble 

 will be had in assorting them when ready to prize. In packing in 

 the hogsheads, care should be taken to have every bundle straight, 

 and every leaf to its bundle. From a well packed hogshead any 

 bundle may be drawn without injury or interruption to the others. 

 The usual way of packing is to commence across the middle of the 

 hogshead, placing the heads of the first course of bundles about 

 eight or ten inches from the outer edge and running the course 

 evenly across ; the packer then places the bundles of the next 

 course in the same direction, the heads against the side or edge of 

 the hogshead, and follow the circumference until the heads of the 

 two courses come in contact ; after that course is completed, he 

 finishes the other side by placing the heads against the cask as 

 befoi'e, so as to have three courses across the cask, the bundles all 

 laid in the same direction, and the next layer is reversed, carefully 

 placing each bundle as it is thrown or handed to him. When 

 filled, it is subjected to the press or screw and forced down. 



Our hogsheads are from forty-four to forty-eight inches across 

 the head, and fifty-eight inches in length, and from 1,800 to 2,000 

 pounds can be easily prized in them. If the tobacco is large, rich 

 and oily, the harder it is pressed the better, and the better price it 

 commands. These remarks are particularly applicable to those 

 heavy descriptions of tobacco known in Virginia as heavy shipping 

 leaf, and in the West as Clarksville tobacco, where the soil and 

 climate are peculiarly adapted to the production of this description 

 of tobacco. In climates not so well adapted and soil of a different 

 character, the same variety of the weed will assume a different 

 character, being of a finer or coarser texture, as the case may be, 

 light and bulky, and destitute of oil and substance. Tobacco of 

 this description should be managed as before directed, but prized 

 lightly in the casks, so as to admit of a free and open leaf, such 

 being mostly required for cigar leaf. 



The writer has been a close observer of tobacco sales for several 

 years, and has seen a difference of two to five dollars per cwt. 

 produced in crops grown on adjoining farms, cultivated in the 



