940 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



6142. The curing process, by Mr. Brodigan, is as follows : About the middle of August, the plants having 

 gttained their full size, four or five of the bottom leaves of each plant are taken off, " suffered to lie on the 

 around for some time ; and when they lose their brittleness, and can be safely handled, they are carried 

 home to a barn, and there put in a heap for fermentation. The heap is turned, placing that in the centre 

 which was before in the bottom or exterior, and the temperature is not allowed to exceed 100 or 110, 

 After remaining two or three days in this heap, the leaves are spread out and cooled, and strung by the 

 midrib on lines of packthread ; they are then hung up in an airy shady place, roofed in. When the 

 leaves thus suspended have acquired an auburn colour, they are fit for a second fermentation. " A 

 quantity of hay must be placed between the tobacco and the ground, and the heap may be made of an 

 oblong or conic figure, the end of the stems being placed inwards. The heap being made, it is to be sur- 

 rounded with hay, blankets, or other close covering. The period for this fermentation will depend upon 

 the state of the weather, and the dryness and size of the leaves. In four or five days I generally found 

 the heat sufficiently high to penetrate and reduce the stems, and when that is accomplished the heap is to 

 be cooled by spreading it out to dry. In reducing very strong tobacco, I found it necessary to permit the 

 heat to ascend to 126. In 60 hours I found the heat had attained 110, and in 72 hours, 126 ; but the 

 general range of the second fermentation was from 120 to 125 Fahrenheit. In some cases I had to resort 

 to a third fermentation of the same tobacco, but the heat did not rise beyond 90. Upon this important 

 point of fermentation, or sweating the tobacco, I have given the result of my practice. For greater accu- 

 racy, and the benefit of the inexperienced, I have given it from a thermometer ; but, at the same time, the 

 hand and feeling of a practised overseer can direct the process. As soon as the tobacco has been perfectly 

 dried, by exposure to the sun and the weather, it is still necessary to dry any remaining moisture in the 

 midribs, for which purpose they must be packed so as to be outside, that the air may have its influence 

 upon them. When they are perfectly dry and hard, the tobacco may be considered as fit for use, although 

 it will possess more or less of crudeness until the month of March following. To correct this crudity, or 

 any acrimony that may exist, different preparations are used in different countries. In Brazil the leaves 

 are steeped in a decoction of tobacco and gum copal. In Virginia, I understood, they sprinkle the tobacco, 

 ih the packing process, with diluted rum and molasses ; and in Ireland they sprinkle, in the packing pro- 

 cess, with a decoction of the green tobacco stems, or a decoction of hay, with a small portion of molasses : 

 the eflfect of this innocent application is to soften and improve the flavour, darken the colour of the to- 

 bacco, and render it, in appearance, a more merchantable commodity. The next and last operation is to 

 tie the leaves in hands, and pack them in bales or portable packages." (p. 166.) 



6143. Improvements in the curing process. Some of Mr. Brodigan's tobacco, he informs us, only wanted 

 age to be as good as Virginia. Tobacco improves by a sea voyage, as it undergoes a certain degree of fer- 

 mentation in the hogsheads in the spring or summer months. Drying houses heated by flues or steam, as 

 now erected in America, he thinks would be an improvement in Ireland. Captain Basil Hall visited a 

 tobacco plantation on James River, and found the house in which the hands were hung up with fires of 

 wood made upon the earthen floor. The flavour of the wood burnt in this way, Mr. Brodigan states, is 

 now strongly perceptible in the tobacco of late years imported from America. 



6144. As suggestions derived from considering what we have read and observed on the 

 subject of cultivating and curing tobacco, we submit the following. 



6145. Where a farmer, who thoroughly understands and successfully practises the Northumberland 

 mode of cultivating turnips, intends growing tobacco as a field crop, we would recommend him to prepare 

 the soil exactly as for Swedish turnips, give a double dose of well rotted manure, mix the seed with fifty 

 times its bulk of sand or bone dust, and sow with Common's turnip drill, usually called French's, about 

 the middle of May. W^hen the plants come up, they may be thinned out as turnips are, to sixteen or 

 eighteen inches apart, and topped in the beginning of August. The rest of the process may be conducted 

 as in Alsace, drying, however, in a barn or house heated by an iron stove. A cottager, or spade cultivator, 

 may find it worth his while to sow in a hotbed or in a flower pot, and transplant : he may dry his leaves 

 the first time under the eaves of his cottage, and the second time in his garret ; or if the quantity is small 

 for home use, in his kitchen. For his tobacco liquor, or sauce, he may grow a score or two of poppy plants, 

 collect the opium from them, and mix this with whisky or spirit of any kind, in which abundance of 

 peach leaves, or a few leaves of Laurus nobilis, or one or two of the common laurel, have been infused, 

 adding water and salt as directed above. A gardener, where there are hothouses and hothouse sheds, 

 may dry and ferment in them ; and indeed with such opportunities, and seeds of N. repandum, he ought 

 to grow better tobacco than any person whatever not in Virginia or the West Indies. 



6146. Produce. According to Morse {American Geography), " An industrious person 

 in Maryland can manage 6000 plants, which, at a yard to each plant, cover considerably 

 more than an English acre of ground; the produce of these 6000 plants is 1000 lbs. 

 of tobacco. * A hogshead,' says Warden, ' weighing 1350 lbs., is considered a good crop, 

 and sufficient employment for one labourer. In general four plants will yield a pound, 

 though very rich land will yield double the quantity. On tlie fresh, rich lands of Kentucky, 

 from 1000 to 1500 lbs. are raised per acre.' " (Brodigan, p. 189.) The leaves of four 

 plants in Virginia make one pound of tobacco. According to Brodigan, the average 

 produce in the county of Wexford is 1200 lbs, per English acre. In Meath, he has 

 had 1680 lbs. per English acre. The money cost of production he estimates at 18/. where 

 the land is prepared by horse labour, and 30/. where it is prepared by manual labour, per 

 English acre. The produce, at 16/. 8s. per hogshead of 1350 lbs., barely pays the expense. 



' 6147. To save seed. Allow a few of the strongest plants to produce their flowers ; they 



'jUvill have a fine appearance in July and August, and in a favourable season each plant 

 will ripen as much seed in September as will sow a quarter of an acre by the drill 

 system of culture, or stock half a dozen acres by transplanting. 



6148. The value of tobacco as an agricultural crop is much diminished, from the cir- 



sumstance of its producing no manure. 



"f"" 6 149. " The arguments of the immortal Jefferson against the culture of tobacco, and in favour of wheat, 

 have their weight in "Virginia, where manure is not to be procured in proportion to the demand, and where 

 the produce of that state has to enter into competition with that of the fresh lands of the western country. 

 It is perfectly true, that where tobacco is generally cultivated, his picture of wretchedness is realised. It is 

 the same in France, in the wine districts, where the people, from the want of corn, and the hogs, poultry, 

 and other essential comforts it produces, are the most wretched of any in that country. It is with tobacco 

 in America as with sugar in the West Indies, both are cultivated from their relative advantages over 

 other crops. Sugar is more profitable than tobacco in the West Indies, although the tobacco grown there 

 is of superior quality, and tobacco is preferred in America to wheat, where the soil and climate admit its 

 cultivation. In some situations it is grown as a matter of necessity : such is the richness of their alluvial 

 and fresh lands, that wheat cannot be produced until that excess of fertility is reduced by a course of 



