TOBACCO 163 



Two general methods are in vogue in harvesting tobacco and 

 managing it in the curing shed. In one of these methods the 

 ripe leaves are picked from the stalk and threaded on strings 

 attached to sticks which allow room for the leaves to hang 

 without touching one another in the curing shed. By the other 

 method the leaves are left attached to the stalks and the whole 

 plant is removed to the barn at a stage when most of the leaves 

 are in the best condition of ripeness. Most tobacco is cured 

 in the air without the help of artificial heat except during wet 

 weather. Ventilation is provided in curing barns under regu- 

 lation in order to prevent the too rapid drying of the leaves. 

 When the tobacco is first harvested the leaves contain consider- 

 able starch, but during the curing process this starch disap- 

 pears. The leaf is considered as fully cured when all of the 

 green color has disappeared and the full development of the 

 yellow color has taken place. At this time the leaves are rather 

 uniformly yellow or brown. The tobacco leaf loses about 75 

 per cent, of its weight in curing, the greater part of this loss 

 being water. In cold or unusually wet weather artificial heat 

 has been utilized to considerable extent, especially with wrap- 

 per tobacco. The method has been applied less to filler and 

 binder tobacco. The heat is generated by small charcoal fires 

 and by various other methods. In the process known as flue 

 curing, systems of pipes are provided in the curing shed to 

 carry off the fuel gases and the smoke does not come in con- 

 tact with tobacco during the curing process, which requires only 

 a few days. Fire curing is a term applied to the method used 

 largely in the dark tobacco districts of Virginia, Kentucky, and 

 Tennessee. This method consists in the use of open fires in 

 the curing shed and the tobacco is, therefore, in contact with 

 the smoke produced by the fires. This method is used largely 

 in curing export tobaccos. 



When tobacco leaves are cured on the stalk the resulting loss 

 of weight is due not only to the evaporation of moisture, but 

 also to the fact that some of the substance of the leaf is trans- 



