218 



TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 



CHAP. 



The use of 

 the house. 



Arrange- 

 ments to be 

 made to 

 hang up the 

 tobacco in 

 the house. 



to protect the tobacco from sun, wind and rain, and to allow 

 it to dry by a free circulation of air. The house may be 

 an elaborate building, erected on stone wall and covered 

 with a shingled roof, or it may be knocked up roughly with 

 a thatched roof and wattled sides. It is better for the build- 

 ing to run north and south, and to have several doors so 

 arranged as to permit free circulation of air. The inside of 

 the house is to be arranged with a frame work of poles and 

 cross rails on each side, so] that the sticks laden with the 

 drying tobacco may be hung up until desiccation is complete. 

 The rails which are nailed horizontally on the upright poles 

 should be one above the other at distances of about three 

 feet, so that the tips of the tobacco leaves on the upper sticks 

 do not touch the bases of the leaves on the lower ones. 



The great 

 importance 

 of proper 

 curing. 



The alka- 

 loids of 

 tobacco. 



How the 

 leaves are 

 dried. 



CURING. If tobacco leaves be taken off the plants and 

 simply dried, they will become dry " weeds " but they will 

 not be tobacco ; for in order to turn the leaves into tobacco, 

 they must be cured, and this process is one of the utmost 

 importance, as on it depends the value of the crop. The 

 finest leaves, raised from the finest seed, grown on the 

 richest soil in the best climate, may be so spoiled by im- 

 proper curing as to turn out a worthless product fit only 

 for the rubbish heap. During the curing of tobacco certain 

 important chemical changes are set up in the leaves by fer- 

 mentation, whereby new compounds are formed. To two of 

 these compounds, called nicotine and nicotianine, the pecu- 

 liar odour and properties of tobacco are due ; and, unless the 

 leaves be properly cured, these substances will not be formed 

 in their due proportions, if indeed they be formed at all. 

 When the first method of cutting the leaves in pairs is 

 adopted, the sticks with the leaves hanging on them are 

 placed close together on the framework in the house so that 

 the leaves on separate sticks touch each other, and they are 

 left in this position for three days, and afterwards separated 

 from each other by a distance of twelve inches in order 



