40 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY. 



PART III. 



MANUFACTURE. 



The various kinds of tobacco arrive in different 

 kinds of package — bales, boxes, peculiar frails or 

 panniers called serous in Spanish, in tierces, and 

 in hogsheads ; — this last form being best adapted 

 to the large Virginjan or Maryland leaf, which 

 is essentially the poor man's tobacco. Immense 

 lever-force is applied in the packing of these 

 hogsheads — a mass of leaves twelve inches in 

 depth being compressed to three, so as to form a 

 compact solid substance — in which state it will 

 keep for almost any length of time. A hogshead, 

 48 inches long by 32 in diameter, will hold more 

 than 1000 lbs. weight of tobacco, when thus com- 

 pressed.* 



* This odd name, hofjshead, has actually been supposed to 

 be derived from its form ; but it would be difficult to make 

 out a resemblance in that monster-barrel to the head of a 

 hog, even if we ignore the snout of the latter. Ocks is a 

 measure in Brabant ; and hondcn means to hold. The com- 

 posite word is thus rationally explained ; and it is clearly the 

 same as the Danish ockshood, or oghshood, and the German 

 oxhoft. 



