THE MANUFACTURE OF TOBACCO. 455 



The manufacture of tobacco has been going on for 

 centuries, and from the simple operation of taking out 

 the midrib and putting it up into twists, the industry 

 now employs the most skilled labor and the most com- 

 plete mechanical appliances for treating it with sauces, 

 drying it by artificial heat, reordering it by steam, 

 weighing, putting on the wrapper, and compressing into 

 plugs in various forms and sizes. 



The Burley of Kentucky and Ohio, and the sun, 

 air and flue cured tobacco of Virginia and the Carolinas, 

 constitute the fillers for the greatest part of the plug 

 tobacco of the United States. The wrappers also come 

 from Virginia, the Carolinas and the White Burley dis- 

 tricts. The Burley fillers are sometimes whitish, but 

 generally of a cinnamon color, of a tough, waxy finish 

 and silky fiber. These fillers have more body and gum 

 than the cutting leaf from the same districts. The raw 

 material is put up in casks, of an average weight of 1000 

 pounds for Burley fillers, and 750 pounds for Virginia 

 and Carolina wrappers. The tobacco is packed in uni- 

 form layers, and but slightly compressed, so the leaves 

 may open freely. 



In a properly constructed tobacco factory, the first 

 work begins in the upper story, to which the hogsheads 

 are elevated. The work begins in the leaf department. 

 The casks are taken off, so as to expose the tobacco. It 

 is taken up, bundle by bundle, and shaken. The infe- 

 rior tobacco is thrown in one pile, and the better quali- 

 ties assorted and put in other piles. Water is sprinkled 

 over each layer of bundles as they are put in the piles, 

 and the tobacco remains in this condition for twenty- 

 four hours, so that the moisture may become evenly dis- 

 tributed. Women mainly, and sometimes men, are em- 

 ployed (see Fig. 130) in untying the bundles, and pick- 

 ing, leaf by leaf, assorting and separating them into the 

 different qualities suitable for the various brands to be 



