TOBACCO CULTURE. 



165 



cure tobacco in tlie open air, without a shed of any sort, simplv 

 scaffolding it on poles in the iield, and chancing the weather; Init, «If 

 course, this is very risky. 



A grower at the foot of the Toowoomba Range, Qiicciislaiid, t..l.l 

 me that he had harvested a crop by simply cutting it down and h-ttiiig 

 it lie on the ground till dry, turning it every two or thrc(> hours. 

 When sufficiently dry, he carted it to the shed and stacked it; there it 

 cured itself in a little over a fortnight. He said that the crop cost him 

 £16 per ton and sold for £:37. I only accept this with a grain of salt- 

 it is liossihle, perhaps, but the chances are a thousand to one again.st. 



The uncertainty of the seasons in New South Wales renders the 

 proper curing of tobacco a matter of much difficulty. I have examined 

 many hundreds of samples of tobacco grown in this Colony, and in the 

 great majority of them I have found mildew on the stems or on tlie 

 tips and margins of the leaves. In many of the samples the mildew 

 was plainly apparent, in others only to be discovered by the aid of a 

 magnifying glass or being subjected to moisture for a few hours. When 

 mildew once becomes established it can never be entirely destroyed. 

 Even after tha most skilful treatment at very high tom|)eratures it 

 will reassert itself when it is placed in a moist atmosphere. The 

 effect of this fungus is to destroy the natural aroma of the tobacco. 

 In a favourable curing season it does not make its a])pearance, but if 

 a few damp days intervene while the leaf is in a partially dried state 

 it is very apt to be developed, sometimes very rapidly. If a week or 

 two of such rains as we frequently experience should occur, nothing 

 but fire can save the tobacco. It was because Mr. Holtz, of Glendon 

 Brook, knew this, and provided against the contingency, that he could 

 always sell his tobacco at the top price of the market. He l)uilt very 

 ample sheds and provided abundance of suitable wood for fuel, and on 

 the occurrence of rain lit a number of fires in each shed, and ke])t them 

 constantly going as long as the damp weather continued. 



The curing of tobacco by the natural air process occupies from five 

 to nine weeks in ordinary seasons ; but there is a process of drying 

 by artifically heated air, by which it can be accomplished within a 

 week. This process was employed, though with very imperfect and 

 makeshift appliances, by Mr. Hungerford and Messrs. Rose, of 

 Baerami, under my directions, with very fair results, last year, and is to 

 be thoroughly tested this season at the experiment stations at Moonbi 

 and Nemingha. If it proves a success (as I have every reason to 

 believe it will), mildew can be banished from New South AVales 

 tobacco-sheds. One very important question to be proved is whethei- 

 tobacco cured by this process will retain the texture that is wanted in 

 cigar wrappers, and if not, whether any modification of the process 

 will be possible to secure that texture. 



The Department of Agriculture is making great efforts to assist the 

 development of an export trade in tobacco. Not only is the new sys- 

 tem of fire-curing to be thoroughly tested, but seed has been obtamed 

 of many choice varieties of tobacco, which are being acclimatised at 

 the experiment farms which are being established in various parts of 

 the Colony. Some of these new tobaccos promise very well, m spite of 

 the dry season. It is very desirable that no tobacco-leaf shall he sent 

 from this Colony to foreign markets, except the very best we can 



