HEAVY SHIPPING TOBACCO. 317 



supported in a position nearly upright by the inclination 

 of each parcel towards the center. It is important that 

 the tails be kept tucked under. Bunches of plants are 

 set up around this center, in the same way, until enough 

 is put together to fill thirty or forty sticks. The heap 

 is then covered with straw, cornstalks, old carpets, or 

 anything to protect it from damage by frost. In a few 

 days the tobacco takes on a golden color, when it is hung 

 and carried to the barn. Continued rains do great dam- 

 age to the tobacco when so heaped. It not only gets in 

 a "strut," but becomes dirty and breaks easily. 



The tobacco is transferred from the fields or scaf- 

 folds to the barn by wagons in one of three ways : 

 Either by hanging the sticks containing the tobacco on 

 the upper railings of a long wagon bed, or frame, four 

 feet deep and four feet wide ; or the tobacco on the 

 sticks is "cooped" in piles, the heads turned outwards 

 and alternately to one side or the other ; or the tobacco 

 is carried on a low frame not more than one foot high, 

 the sticks being hung on the upper railings, with the 

 tails of the plants lying flat in the bottom of the frame, 

 or tucked under. When eight or ten sticks have been 

 so arranged, other sticks filled with tobacco are piled on 

 top, in shingle fashion. The advantage in having a 

 low frame is, that the heads will lean over so as to be 

 nearly flat, and the tobacco piled on this foundation will 

 not be punctured by the butt ends. A larger quantity 

 can be carried in a wagon in this way, than in either of 

 the others. Fig. 91 shows a new style of wagon that is 

 very desirable for this work. 



A method of taking tobacco to the curing house 

 once much used, but now generally abandoned, was to 

 have two or more light sleds. Instead of piling the 

 plants in the field, they were piled on the low platforms 

 of the sleds, with the heads outward, as shown in Fig. 30. 

 When a load of sufficient weight was put on the sled for 



