HEAVY SHIPPING TOBACCO. 327 



small hickory poles divided in halves are frequently used 

 for the same purpose. In Virginia and North Carolina, 

 staves are often made by sawing cuts of the old field 

 pines into the proper dimensions ; these make very 

 cheap staves, but they will not bear rough usage. In 

 Kentucky and Tennessee, hogsheads are made of hived 

 oak staves, or sweet oak, or of any other tough, hard 

 wood. 



There are several ways of packing tobacco in hogs- 

 heads. One is to run two courses across the bottom of 

 the hogshead, the heads of the central bundles in the 

 course being about eight inches from the staves, and the 

 distance of the heads from the staves decreases each way 

 in the course until they come in contact with the staves. 

 Two more courses are run at right angles to the first 

 two, and this is continued until the hogshead is filled, 

 the pressure of the screw, or prize, being put on at 

 intervals. This is called the "square pack," as shown 

 in Fig. 93. . Another way is to run two courses, as in the 

 square pack, and then two more courses, the bundles 

 lying in the same directions, but with the heads 

 jammed against the staves of the hogshead. In the 

 leading heavy-shipping districts from 1400 to 1800 

 pounds of the best grades are put in a hogshead, aver- 

 aging about 1600 pounds, and from 1800 to 2200 pounds 

 of lugs, though the weights vary from 1000 pounds for 

 fancy to 2500 pounds for black shippers or balers. 



NEGRO LABOR.* 



The Laborers Chiefly Employed in the heavy-ship- 

 ping-tobacco districts are negroes, who are exceedingly 

 efficient in the work of cultivating, worming, suckering, 

 housing and preparing the crop for market. Trained 



* It may be well to state that Col. Killebrew, the writer of this 

 article, was an extensive slave owner before the war, and since then 

 has been a large employer of negro labor on his plantations. 



