YELLO\V TOBACCO. 365 



lower leaves are pulled off, those left on the stalk ripen 

 up and yellow more rapidly, which enables the planter 

 to get in his crop earlier in the season. 4. Tobacco 

 can be cured a more uniform color. 5. Less fuel will 

 be required. 6. The risk of setting fire to the barn 

 will be greatly lessened. 7. The tobacco can be stored 

 in a much smaller space, and with no danger of losing 

 color, or of mold. 8. By this process enough leaves, 

 which are lost by the old process, will be saved to pay 

 for the fertilizer necessary to grow the crop, also to pay 

 for all extra labor needed in housing the same. 9. It 

 will help to solve the problem of overproduction, by 

 grading up the tobacco in our section so as to place us 

 above the competition of those sections which grow low 

 grades of tobacco, which in the past few years has proved 

 so detrimental to our pockets. 



When the whole stalk is cut, in harvesting, it is 

 not put upon the ground to wilt, as is done in the heavy 



FIG. 108. POLE WITH "HANDS" OF LEAVES TIED ON EITHER SIDE. 



tobacco districts. Two men cut, while another person 

 holds a stick convenient for them to straddle each plant 

 over it as it is severed from the ground. The stick, 

 when it has six or seven plants on it, is taken to a wagon 

 and either cooped or hung in a frame made for hauling 

 green tobacco. Or it may be hauled on a sled, as seen 

 in Fig. 109. When the tobacco is loaded, it is taken to 

 the barn and arranged on tiers from eight inches to a 

 foot apart. 



There is no question that this is a much neater and 

 safer plan for housing tobacco than that employed in 

 the other tobacco districts, where it is put upon the 

 ground to wilt, but the method practiced in the yellow 



