CULTURE AND CURING IN VIRGINIA. 



207 



dark shipping tobacco the plants arc carried to the house and hung as soon as cut, and, when the house is filled, slow 

 fires are started. To cure red shipping the tobacco is allowed to yellow for a few days, cither on the scaffold or in 

 the house. That which has yellowed on the scaffold will require but two or three days of firing when housed ; but 

 that put immediately into the barn remains two or three days to yellow without fire, is then fired, and is cured in 

 four or five days. Where the yellow manufacturing type is the principal product, flues and charcoal fires are used 

 to cure nearly all the better grades. 



Where heavy shipping tobacco is the leading product, with a small proportion of manufacturing tobacco, the 

 shipping is mostly cured with open wood fires, and the new-ground manufacturing with charcoal. In firing with 

 wood two logs of seasoned hickory or other hard wood are placed side by side under each tier, the fires kindled 

 along between the logs, using small bits of wood to get the fires started. 



In Albemarle, Greene, Amherst, and Bedford, counties of Piedmont, wood fires are mostly used in curing. 



For curing bright yellow tobacco two modes are in use: one with charcoal, and the other with flues. The process 

 is minutely described in the chapter on North Carolina, and is known as the Ragland method. 



A barn containing 700 sticks of green tobacco, six medium plants on each stick, holds, along with the tobacco, 

 from 4,500 to 5,000 pounds of water, which must be expelled in from eighty-five to one hundred hours. 



Charcoal produces an open, dry heat, well suited for the purpose; but it is a costly fuel, its use tedious, dirty, 

 and laborious, and it deposits a black dust on the leaf. With properly constructed flues of stone or of brick, 

 covered with sheet-iron, or with furnaces and cast-iron pipes, wood is burned at little cost, the tobacco being cured 

 free of dust, and having a sweeter flavor. 



The following table shows the proportions of the product of the several counties, air-dried or cured by artificial 

 heat, and the proportion of that cured by heat with open wood fires, or by charcoal and flues : 



Planters who use charcoal burn it on their farms, if suitable wood can be had ; others buy from parties who 

 make a business of charcoal burning. The old-field pine makes a prime article of coal, gives off but little smoke in 

 burning, and does not taint the tobacco with the taste of creosote, as does charcoal from many kinds of wood. 

 Good charcoal sells at four to five cents per bushel, and is often delivered at the barn for the latter price. A barn 

 20 feet square, with five main firing tiers, filled with tobacco, will require from 120 to 130 bushels to cure the 

 contents thoroughly. Many planters continue the use of charcoal, and claim for it certain advantages over the 

 flue that it cures better, and is safe this opinion being probably formed by comparison with imperfect and wrongly- 

 constructed flues, or those which have been ignorantly managed. Charcoal-cured tobacco holds its color well, 

 possibly better than flue-cured ; but this does not compensate for the extra cost. 



LOSSES BY FIRE AND RATES OF INSURANCE OF TOBACCO-BARNS. 



In the air-curing district the number of tobacco-houses burned annually is less than 1 per cent, of the whole ; 

 in the open wood-fire district, from 2 to 3 per cent.; and in the charcoal and flue-curing district, from 3 to 5 per 

 cent. 



In the shipping district, where open wood tires are used, the temperature of the house rarely exceeds !)d. 

 Mrights require very hot fires at certain stages of the curing processes, but nevertheless the larger proportion of 

 by fire in fined barns is due more to defective construction and careless management than to the necessarily 

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