HEAVY SHIPPING TOBACCO. 315 



regions, and it is a good practice, if the weather is fair. 

 If tobacco is very heavy and the distance to the curing 

 house is as much as half a mile, much time may be 

 saved by scaffolding in the field for several days. Then 

 double the quantity may be hauled in a load. But if 

 there is a foreshadowing of rain or stormy weather, it is 

 far better to carry it to the barn at once. It does not 

 injure the tobacco much to be caught in a rain while on 

 the scaffolds, unless the rains are long continued. When 

 the rains last a day or two, the tobacco gets very crisp, 

 and it is difficult to handle it without doing a great 

 deal of damage by bruising and breaking the leaves. 

 Scaffolds are nothing but poles arranged four feet apart, 

 and sufficiently high above the ground for the tails of 

 the tobacco to hang clear. These poles may be sup- 

 ported at one end by a bed pole, and at the other by 

 forks. Scaffolds are often made in the corners of the 

 zigzag rail fences that enclose the fields. They are con- 

 structed by resting three rails, or poles, on top of the 

 fence, supported at the outer end by forks or other con- 

 venient means, so as to make two tiers, upon which the 

 sticks holding the tobacco are arranged. It does not 

 injure the tobacco to crowd it upon an outdoor scaffold. 

 It will yellow the more readily by being so crowded. 

 However closely it may be put, in a day or two the wilt- 

 ing of the plant and the evaporation will make it an 

 easy matter to put the sticks still more closely. 



In four or five days it should be taken from the 

 scaffold and arranged for curing in the barns. Tobacco 

 that has been on a scaffold for a few days may be ar- 

 ranged a fourth closer in the barns than that taken to 

 the barns directly from the fields. In the early history 

 of tobacco culture, scaffolds were almost universally 

 used. For a time, within the past twenty years, they 

 were almost universally discarded. More recently, how- 

 ever, this preparatory curing is being adopted by many 



