TOBACCO 245 



(a) Sweating the leaf to obtain the yellow colour and 

 fixing same. 



(b) Drying the leaf. 



(c) Drying the stein and sterilising the tobacco. 



(a) Sweating the leaf to obtain the yelloiv colour and 

 fixing same. It is impossible to set down any fixed 

 temperatures for curing tobacco, as the raising of the 

 temperature for stages (b) and (c) largely depends on the 

 behaviour of the leaf in stage (a). Some tobacco sweats 

 freely and turns yellow twelve to thirty hours after it is 

 placed in the barns and subjected to temperatures between 

 85 and 90 F., whilst other tobacco refuses to sweat 

 and remains green until water is spread on the barn 

 floor and the temperature is kept at 100 to 105 F. for 

 ten to fifteen hours, when the desired colour may appear. 

 It is a good sign when tobacco becomes yellow 

 early in the first stage of curing, and it is important to 

 see that the leaf blade is uniformly yellow to the mid-rib 

 before raising the temperature above noF., when drying 

 sets in, as once the leaf becomes dry it is dead, and the 

 colour cannot then be altered by subsequent manipulation 

 of temperature and ventilation of the barn. 



Green-cured leaf can be improved to a certain extent 

 by bulking, but it never produces such high-class tobacco 

 as when the colour comes naturally in the first stage of 

 curing, and for this reason it is important to see? that 

 once the desired colour is obtained it is fixed, and this 

 is accomplished by raising the temperature in four to 

 eight hours from 110 to 120 F. 



The range of temperature to complete the yellowing 

 of th-e leaf may be anything between 90 and 110 F. r 

 and 110 to 120 F. fixes the leaf colour. This first stage 

 may occupy on an average two and a half days. 



(6) Drying the leaf. Now that the tobacco is of the 

 desired colour, the aim is to stop leaf-sweat and dry out 

 the leaf by raising the temperature slowly by 5 at a 

 time from 120 to 135 F. The duration of this stage 

 is from twenty-eight to thirty-six hours, but considerable 

 manipulation of ventilators and heat is necessary to 

 prevent leaf splotch. 



(c) Drying the stems and sterilising the tobacco. 



