ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE. 557 



from which it was cut. As soon as it 

 falls or wilts it is put in piles of ten 

 plants each, with the butts toward the 

 sun. If the sun is shining very hot, care 

 must be taken to prevent sun-burn, which 

 injures it very much. Piling as above 

 will generally prevent this. Each pile is 

 hung on a stick, and if the tobacco is 

 very large eight plants to a pile is suffi- 

 cient. Stick your stick in the hill adjoin- 

 ing the one on which the tobacco is 

 piled, and slanting slightly, and hang the 

 tobacco in the field, instead of hauling to 

 the barn or scaffold before hanging it, as 

 it saves time and is bruised less. As 

 soon as hung on the stick, haul directly 

 to the barn, and hoist from the wagon to 

 the tier poles, filling each room of the 

 barn from top to bottom as you go. 



A conveniendy sized barn is twenty feet 

 square, five firing tiers high. The lower 

 tier poles should be about eight feet from 

 the ground, the next three and a half feet 

 above, the third three and a half above 

 the second, and so on to the top. They 

 should be four feet apart, giving five 

 rooms in the barn from top to bottom. 

 Such a barn will hold one thousand sticks 

 of tobacco, usually about three acres, 

 and can be built of logs at trifling cost. 

 The sticks should be four and a half feet 

 long, so as to lap the tier poles well and 

 to prevent their slipping off. Scaffolding 

 in the field has been entirely abandoned 

 by the best farmers in Virginia and Ken- 

 tucky, except when the tobacco is to be 

 sun-cured. The distances between the 

 sticks when hung in the barn should vary 

 somewhat, according to the size of the 

 tobacco, the amount of sap in it, and the 

 process by which it is to be cured, from 

 six to eight inches ; and if intending to 

 cure by action of the atmosphere, the 

 barn should be quite open, and the sticks 

 should hang ten inches apart at least. 



We now come to the process of curing 

 — the most important as well as the most 

 difficult part of the work — requiring all 

 the energy, watchfulness and intelligence 

 the farmer can bring to bear. To cure 

 the heavy, dark varieties for export, called 

 shipping leaf, the usual mode of firing is 

 supposed to be the best ; and as a bright 

 color is not indispensable to its value, the 

 less fire used the better, so that it is saved 

 from house-burn until cured fully. This 

 does not apply, however, to a large and 



valuable proportion of the Missouri and 

 Illinois crops, called shipping leaf, and 

 suitable especially for the English mar- 

 kets. This should be cured as bright as 

 possible, which can be best done by the 

 use of flues or charcoal ; and at the same 

 time avoid the very objectionable flavor 

 and smell of smoke. In fact, the less 

 smoke any kind of totacco has, the 

 better it sells ; and when charcoal or flues 

 cannot be had, as much of the curing as 

 the weather will permit should be done 

 by the sun and air. If the weather is fair 

 and the barn room ample, tobacco will 

 cure by the action of the atmosphere in 

 about ten days, with the assistance of 

 very little fire, and will be much sweeter 

 and more valuable than if cured quickly 

 by hard firing. 



The climate, and a large proportion of 

 the soil of Missouri, are as well adapted 

 to the production of those fine and high- 

 priced varieties of tobacco used in this 

 country by manufacturers of both plug 

 and fine-cut chewing, as Virginia, North 

 Carolina or Kentucky; but our farmers 

 have not yet. attained anything like the 

 perfection in the management of their 

 crops, and consequently do not get near 

 such prices. The use of flues for curing 

 bright manufacturing leaf is gaining in 

 popularity every year, and we have yet 

 to see the first farmer who ever tried them 

 and abandoned them for any other pro- 

 cess. Less than ten years ago there was 

 not one in western Kentucky, and now a 

 very large proportion of the farmers of 

 that section cure their entire crops with 

 them, and they invariably get nearly 

 double as much as the same tobacco, 

 even with the same color, would bring 

 if cured by firing in the old way. Even 

 if they fail — as they sometimes do with 

 any process — to get a strictly bright 

 color, the tobacco is so sweet and has 

 that peculiar flavor which manufacturers 

 desire. Besides these advantages, they 

 are very much more convenient, saving a 

 great deal of fuel, and the farmer is 

 saved the disagreeable task of smoking 

 his eyes out. 



The construction of the flues used in 

 Kentucky is very simple and not very 

 expensive. Two parallel nine-inch brick 

 walls, about eighteen inches apart, and 

 eighteen or twenty inches high, across the 

 centre of the barn, and these brick walls. 



