98 
After the tobacco begins to grain, that is, to ripen, neither plow nor hoe should be 
used, as it has been found best to sacrifice pounds to color. 
The plants after being topped should be kept clear of worms; or, better stiil, kill 
the tobacco-fly*with cobalt in the flowers of the ‘‘ Jamestown weed,”* and the suckers 
should be pulled off before they grow too long. Mind, do not be in a hurry to cut 
your tobacco before fully ripe, and enough fully and uniformly ripe to filla barn. Have 
your barns close, (log ones are best,) well daubed, and dry. Cut the tobacco of uni- 
form size, color, and quality, putting about seven medium plants to an ordinary 44- 
foot stick. Let the plants go from the cutter’s hands over the stick in the hands of a 
holder, who will serve two cutters. When the stick is filled it should go directly, 
without touching the ground, on a wagon, to be carried, when loaded, (not too heavily, ) 
to the barn. It will take from seven hundred to eight hundred sticks of tobacco to fill 
a barn 20 feet square, with five rooms, and four firing-tiers below joists, placing the 
sticks about 10 inches apart, the proper distance for medium tobacco. As soon as the 
barn is properly filled and the tobacco regulated on sticks and tiers, fires of coal or 
hickory wood should be built in the barn, four fires in a row under each room, thus 
giving twenty fires to a barn 20 feet square. If hickory wood is used, let it be sapling 
wood, cut about 2 feet long, and green, or partially dry. Next to coal, hickory fur- 
nishes the best yellowing-heat. 
The first step in curing is called the STEAMING or YELLOWING process. Medium 
tobacco will require about thirty-six hours steaming, at about ninety degrees Fahr., 
to yellow sufficiently; but tobacco with more or less sap, larger or smaller, may 
require longer or shorter time to yellow. Here the judgment of the curer must be his. 
guide. Inexperienced planters would do well to procure the services of an experienced 
curer, if they have tobacco suitable for coal-curing. The planter saves, in the enhanced 
value of his crop, many times the money paid to the curer; and, besides, by close 
observation, he may learn in one season to cure well himself. Theory alone, however 
good, and directions, however minute, will not do here; but it is practice that must 
qualify one to cure well. ; 
The next step in curing yellow tobacco is called FIXING THE COLOR. “When the 
tobacco is sufficiently yellowed, at ninety degrees Fabr., the best leaves of a uni- 
form color, and the greener ones of a light pea-green color, it is time to advance the 
heat gradually but cautiously. Keep the heat from ninety to ninety-five degrees Fahr., 
say for about an hour, then run up from ninety-five degrees to one hundred degrees, 
keeping the heat between those figures for about two hours, observing to let the mer- 
cury descend a little every time after raising, before putting on more coal—coal only 
should be used now. ‘This is done to prevent sweating the tobacco, a continuous heat 
operating more to do that than a fluctuating one, as described. Should the tobacco 
get into a sweat at this or any future stage, which is indicated by the leaf becoming 
damp and limber, as though partially scalded, raise the fires a little, and open the door; 
this creates a current of heated air that will soon dry out the leaf. The thermometer 
may fall even ten degrees here without injury to the color. It is advisable, however, 
that the tobacco be kept free from sweating, if possible. Next advance the heat, run- 
ning from one hundred to one hundred and five for about two hours. When at one 
hundred and five degrees, you have arrived at the most critical point in the difficult 
process of curing bright tobacco. The condition and appearance of the tobacco must 
be the curer’s guide. No one can successfully cure tobacco till he can distinguish the 
effects of too much or too little heat at this important stage. I will try to explain 
what is very plain to every experienced curer, but unknown to the beginner. 
Too little heat in fixing color operates to stain the face side of the leaf of a dull 
Spanish-brown color, and is called sponging, and may be known to the novice by its. 
effects being visible only on the face side; too much heat reddens the leaf, first in spots, 
visible on the edge of the leaf, redder than the former, and visible on both sides of the 
leaf. Now,to prevent sponging on the one hand and spotting on the other, is the aim 
of the experienced curer. Therefore, no definite time can be laid down to run from one 
hundred and five to one hundred and ten degrees. Sometimes one hour is sufficient ; 
sometimes three is fast enough. The same may be said in running from one hundred 
and ten degrees to one hundred and twenty degrees, While it is usual to advance in 
this stage about five degrees every two hours for medium tobacco, the condition 
of the tobacco often indicates to the practiced eye the necessity for slower or faster 
movements. Remember not to advance over one hundred and ten degrees till the tails 
begin to curl up slighty at the ends. 
Arrived at one hundred and twenty degreés, this is the ‘curing process. The heat 
* Dissolve an ounce of the cobalt of the shopsin a pint and a half of water, and mix 
it with molasses or other sirup, bottle it, and drop it through a quill into the heart of 
the blossom. It should be done about sun-down, and the poisoned flowers pulled off 
next day; otherwise the plant will be destroyed. It has been found that this weed, so 
treated, planted around the edge of the tobacco-lot, and here and there through the 
patch, will prevent, to a great extent, the ravages of the tobacco-worm. All the 
planters, however, in one neighborhood must act together, and this can be arranged 
through the local agricultural club. 
