326 TOBACCO LEAF. 



form, four and one-half feet wide and as long as may be 

 necessary to hold the tobacco to be bulked, is made a 

 foot, or more, above the surface of the ground, unless 

 the stripping room has a plank floor, which will answer 

 for a platform. One man gets on the platform and one 

 or two bundles at a time are handed to him, after being 

 thoroughly straightened and squeezed. A course is ran 

 the entire length of the platform with the heads coin- 

 ciding with its outer edge. Another is similarly run on 

 the opposite side of the platform. Then two courses are 

 run between these, the heads of the bundles resting 

 midway the first course, and the tails overlapping the 

 center line of the bulk. These four courses form one 

 layer, and these layers are repeated until all the tobacco 

 is put in bulk. In laying down the bundles, the man 

 who bulks gets on his knees and packs before him, lay- 

 ing the bundles flat and drawing them closely together. 

 In bulking the heavy-shipping tobacco, the leaves are 

 never permitted to flare out fanlike, but the bundles are 

 kept as nearly as possible in a cylindrical form. When 

 the bulk is finished, it is covered with planks, or tobacco 

 sticks, laid evenly over the top and heavily weighted 

 with logs or rocks. In two or three weeks the tobacco 

 will smell as sweet as a rose and is ready to be put in the 

 hogshead. 



The hogsheads for shipping tobacco vary in sizes, 

 but the most approved sizes are 56 inches high and 42 

 inches in diameter at the head, or 54 inches high and 

 38 to 44 inches in diameter. In some districts the hogs- 

 heads are made 60 inches high, or even 72 inches high 

 by 50 inches in diameter, but these sizes are not popular 

 with buyers. 



The casks are usually made of white oak staves 

 rived and drawn, but sometimes they are sawed. Hoops 

 for banding the casks are made of the sap part, with a 

 little of the heart of a young, white oak tree, though 



