Through agricultural research much of the back breaking hand 

 labor involved in the harvest ing of tobacco will be el iminated in the 

 near future. This experimenta I tobacco harvestor designed to be used 

 in conjunction with bulk curing of flue cured tobacco was deve I oped 

 by the Agr i cu I tura I Engineering Department at North Carolina State 

 Un i vers i ty. 



called for more instead of less hand labor. It takes approximately 

 440 man-hours of labor to produce, harvest and market an acre of 

 tobacco of which about 132 man-hours are accounted for in the har- 

 vesting. 



The laborious job of harvesting flue-cured tobacco begins during 

 the latter part of June in Southeastern North Carolina and continues 

 through the middle of September in the Piedmont section of the state. 

 In harvesting flue-cured tobacco, each leaf has to bp primed individ- 



8 



