CURING BY SMOKE. 453 



habitually weather-wise, from the sowing of his plants, until 

 the delivery of his crop to the inspector. To regulate this 

 effect upon the plants he must take care to be often among 

 them, and when too much moisture is discovered, it is tem- 

 pered by the help of smoke, which is generated by means of 

 small smothered fires made of old bark, and of rotten wood, 

 kindled about upon various parts of the floor where they 

 may seem to be most needed. 



" In this operation it is necessary that a careful hand should 

 be always near : for the fires must not be permitted to blaze, 

 and burn furiously; which might not only endanger the 

 house, but which, by occasioning a sudden over-heat while 

 the leaf is in a moist condition, might add to the malady of 

 * firing ' which often occurs in the field." 



In Virginia the manner of curing tobacco at the present 

 time, is thus described by a planter. " For curing tobacco 

 the simplest method is sun-curing or air curing and the one 

 most likely to prove successful. The tobacco barn should 

 be so constructed as to contain four, five or six rooms four 

 feet wide, so that four and a half feet sticks may fit, all alike. 

 Log barns are best for coal curing. All should be built high 

 enough to contain four firing tiers under joists covered with 

 shingles or boards and daubed close. Fire with hickory all 

 rich, heavy, shipping tobacco. 



" As soon as the barn is filled kindle small fires of coals or 

 hickory wood, about twenty fires to a barn twenty feet square, 

 four under each room. Coal is best, but hickory saplings, 

 chopped about two feet long, make a good steaming heat. 

 The successful coal-curer is an artist, and all engaged in the 

 business are experimenters in nature's great laboratory." A 

 North Carolina planter gives an interesting account of cur- 

 ing tobacco yellow. " Curing tobacco yellow, for which this 

 section is so famous, is a very nice process and requires some 

 experience, observation, and a thorough knowledge of the 

 character and quality of the tobacco with which you have to 

 deal, in order to insure uniform success. Much depends 

 upon the character of the crop when taken from the hill. 

 If it is of good size, well matured and of good yellowish 

 color, there is necessarily but little difficulty in the operation. 

 As soon as the tobacco is taken from the hill and housed, we 

 commence with a low degree of heat, say 95 to 100 Fahr., 

 4 the yellowing ' or ' steaming ' process. This is the first and 

 simplest part of the whole process, and requires from fifteen 

 to thirty-six hours, according to the size and quality of the 



