CULTURE AND CURING IN WISCONSIN. 



235 



for the purpose, and carried to the sheds, whore they are arranged on the tier-poles, or racks, from 6 to 10 inches 

 apart, according to the size of the plants, but never so close as to permit them to touch each other. 



It requires six weeks to cure the Spanish varieties perfectly, and two months to cure the seed-leaf. If the 

 weather is dry after the crop is housed, the doors are kept closed during the day and opened at night, but extreme 

 care must be taken not to cure too rapidly. In muggy, sultry weather as much air as possible should be given, 

 thorough ventilation being indispensable to prevent pole-sweat. Continuous damp weather or continuous dry 

 weather are both to be feared. It is believed by many good growers that white veins are the result of a drought 

 after the tobacco has been harvested, and it is said that no crop cured when there is plenty of rain is ever affected 

 with them. Inferences of this kind, however, are too often drawn without cousidering a sufficient number of cases 

 to warrant the enunciation of a general law. It is a well-established truth, however, deduced from the universal 

 experience of the cultivation of seed-leaf tobacco in every state, that a crop cannot be well cured without the 

 alternations of moist and dry atmosphere. 



TOBACCO-HOUSES. 



The tobacco-houses, or sheds, are generally very inexpensive frame buildings, 14 feet high, 28 feet wide, and 

 long enough to harvest whatever number of acres the farmer may wish to raise. The height between the tiers is 

 usually 4 feet, which allows ample room for ventilation. The height of the shed gives three tiers from top to 

 bottom, allowing half a foot between the tails of the tobacco hung on the lower tier and the ground. The capacity 

 of these sheds varies from 2 to 12 acres, and many of them very rickety and open, and are totally unfit for the 

 purpose. The tendency, however, is toward improvement, for observing farmers have discovered that to cure 

 tobacco properly it is necessary to be able to control the conditions which surround it. The cost of the best sheds 

 at present does not exceed $600. 



PREPARATION OF TOBACCO FOE MARKET AND PEICES. 



From the 15th of November to the 1st of January is the usual period for preparing the crop for market. The 

 usual practice among farmers is first to strip the leaves from the stalks, tying them up in large bundles and assorting 

 afterward. A few assort directly from the stalk, but "table assorting", or assorting after stripping, is preferred 

 by the most painstaking farmers. After the tobacco has been carefully assorted into three or four grades, generally 

 first wrappers, second wrappers, fillers, and binders, it is tied in " hands " of from eighteen to twenty leaves, securely 

 wrapped with a leaf at the butt-end, and "bulked" or "banked" in piles, with the heads out and tails overlapping 

 in the center of the bulk. Here it remains until the " fatty stems " are thoroughly cured, when it is ready for 

 market, unless the grower prefers to pack it in boxes himself. The selling goes on all through the winter, and even 

 up to May. In all the towns and villages of any considerable size in the tobacco-growing region there are 

 established what are known as warehouses, where dealers buy, pack, and sweat the crop, preparatory to sending it 

 to more distant markets. In the town of Edgerton there are thirteen of these warehouses, and it is estimated that 

 during the year 1879 fully half a million dollars was disbursed among the farmers in the immediate vicinity for 

 tobacco. 



Sloughton has five warehouses, and the amount disbursed in 1879 in the purchase of tobacco was about $214,000. 

 Janesville has one, which pays out $40,000, and Evansville one, where $25,000 was disbursed during the same year. 

 Several other places, as Madison and Milton, have recently entered into the business of buying and packing tobacco, 

 and there is no other crop grown in the state which gives such animation to trade, or which supplies the farmers so 

 surely with ready money. The total expenditure in 187!) by local dealers in the state for tobacco delivered loose 

 was estimated to exceed $890,000. 



The following were average prices paid for crop through (that is, including all grades) for the product grown 

 in the annexed years, but sold in the market the following years : 



When sold by grades the following prices prevailed in 1879 : 



829 



