CURING. 



83 



Cuban practice. " Tobacco should be cut during the 

 wane of the moon ; and although most vegueros say that it 

 is impossible to do this, because the leaves commence to 

 ripen both during the new and the full moon, and would 

 be over-ripe before its wane, we can, nevertheless, assert 

 that we know persons who never cut their tobacco during 

 the first quarter, or when rain has made it again green. 

 These persons have never experienced any difficulty; 

 rather, on the contrary, they are those who always obtain 



FIG. 8. 



the best prices and the greatest money results. Cutting 

 tobacco during the first quarter of the moon, or when 

 vegetation is renewed in the leaf, is one of the principal 

 reasons why the leaf becomes pricked with holes, and this 

 very frequently even before it is taken from the plantation 

 to the market. The system generally observed is, in 

 cutting tobacco, to take off, at once, all those parts of the 

 plants which may be really or apparently ripe, and to 

 load up the poles indiscriminately, without any division 

 between the pairs of leaves (mancuernas). This system is 



G 2 



