162 



FUNDAMENTALS OF AGRICULTURE. 



AN EXCELLENT TOBACCO CROP. 



bottom. Three or four pickings are thus made at in- 

 tervals of a week or ten days. The leaves, carefully 

 laid in baskets, are taken to the barn and there strung 

 on strings attached to laths, each lath carrying about 

 forty leaves, and hung up in the barn as above de- 

 scribed. 



Curing. When the barn is filled with tobacco in 

 this way, the process of curing begins. This requires 

 more care and skill than anything else connected with 

 the crop. 



The object is to dry out the leaf gradually, so that 

 it will " come to color; " that is, will get the charac- 

 teristic colors (yellow or brown) which cured tobacco 

 of the particular kind grown should have, and not to 

 let the fermentation which causes this change go too 

 far, making the leaf too dark. If the barn is too dry. 

 the leaf dries too rapidly to get the right color and 

 remains green. If it is too damp, the leaf will " pole 

 burn," become discolored and rot. Often fires are 



