CULTURE AND CURING IX TENNESSEE. 



181 



The poisoned artificial Jamestown-weed bloom, described in chapter XXI, has been favorably tried, and in very 

 rare cases reliance is placed upon droves of turkeys for suppressing the horn-worms; but the safest and surest menus 

 for the destruction of this great enemy of the tobacco-plant is in the employment of a sufficient number of good, steady, 

 trustworthy hands. When as many as five hands are engaged in the work, it is found profitable for the employer 

 or his manager to follow behind them and catch what worms they may leave. This active supervision will insure, 

 the attention of each laborer, and a rivalry springs up as to which one shall leave the smallest number. Suckers, 

 as a usual thing, are pulled off at least ouce a week, and cease to be troublesome after they have been broken 

 off twice from the same place. 



As the plants ripen they become more brittle, and greater care is necessary to prevent breaking the leaves in 

 passing through worming and suckering. The worming process also becomes more difficult, for in raising the 

 leaves to look for worms on the under surfaces they are apt to break off. At this stage winds often invert half of 

 the leaf, folding it over on the other half. Such leaves should be carefully turned back, as the heat of the sun 

 soon impairs their value by blistering or burning the under surfaces. 



TOBACCO-HOUSES. 



In the early history of tobacco culture in the state the tobacco-houses were simply pens, built with rough logs. 

 Afterward an improvement was made by hewing the logs 

 on two sides, so as to have an evenness of surface on both 

 the outside and the inside. As good, straight building logs 

 became, scarce and dear, frame barns were substituted; 

 yet at the present day fully three-fourths of the barns in 

 the state are built of logs, and there are many excellent 

 farmers who prefer them for curing tobacco. They are 

 usually built from 20 to 24 feet square and four or five 

 firing-tiers in height. Two of these pens are sometimes 

 built so as to leave a passage between, as in the illustra- 

 tioH. Others are shedded around with hip rafters, so as 

 to have three firing-tiers iu the shed. The shed is usually 

 constructed from 12 to 15 feet wide. Such a barn (see 

 engraving) has the capacity of housing and curing 10,000 

 pounds of tobacco. 



Sometimes, when more curing space is needed, a 

 room is added to each end of the log barn, 10 or 15 feet in 

 length, the walls of the same height as the log pens, the roof being continuous; and side sheds are added, if desired. 

 Such an addition, while no more expen- 

 sive, is more easily constructed, and is 

 much more roomy than hip-rafter sheds 

 built on the four sides of an ordinary 

 barn. 



In building a log barn, the pen is 

 raised to the height of about 9 feet, when 

 a set of tier poles, 4 feet apart, is put 

 across and notched down. About every 

 3 feet in height thereafter another set is 

 put in, until the barn is raised as high 

 as is desired. Two or more sets of tiers 

 are framed on the rafters, giving addi- 

 tional room in the roof. A barn five 

 tiers high in the body and 20 feet square 

 on the inside will hold 1,000 sticks, each 

 stick containing 7 plants, or will house 

 and cure two acres of tobacco. 



Frame barns are constructed in a variety of ways. The diagrams on page 182 will serve to show the details in 

 the construction of a frame barn 40 feet square, with a capacity of holding seven acres of well-grown tobacco. 



A represents a wagon-way 13 feet wide, the posts on each .side of which are framed into sills. The posts on 

 each side, on the lines marked B and C, are, 21 feet high, cupped with a stout plate 4 by G inches. At the height 

 of !) feet from the sills the first set of streamers is let in the posts, parallel with the passage, and three cither sets 

 above these, 3 feet apart, which, with the plates 3 feet above the last set, make fine foundations for tier poles put 

 at right angles and extending over the passage-way. These tier poles are put 4 feet apart, every alternate one 



775 



