CULTURE AND CURING IN NEW ENGLAND. 



251 



grower, etc. During the process of sweating the boxes are piled on one another, generally on their sides, but are 

 never exposed to the rays of the sun. A well-plastered or ceiled room is prepared for this purpose, the heat 

 generated being at times so great in the sweating rooms as seriously to affect plastered walls. The process of 

 sweating is to tobacco what fermentation is to wine. It ripens it and prepares it for use. It perfects it in color, 

 improves the flavor, subdues the acrid or pungent taste, increases its burning qualities, and gives it a shining, 

 oily surface, which is called "satin face". All tobacco, however, does not go through this process well, as all 

 wines do not ferment well. Some of it comes out with a lifeless appearance. Whether this is due to the want of 

 essential oils, or arises from the improper condition in which it is packed, is a question not fully determined. 

 Tobacco, like wine, will often go through a second fermentation the ensuing year with an improvement of quality. 

 No artificial means further than " spraying" are used for " ordering" the tobacco before packing. The amount 

 injured by oversweating is small, and will not exceed 1 per cent. The greatest loss is in weight, which amounts 

 to ten or fifteen pounds in a hundred, varying with the lightness or heaviness of the tobacco. After it has gone 

 through the sweat securely, which takes from three to four months, the ends of the boxes are opened, and samples 

 are drawn from different layers in the boxes by inspectors, who, for a fee of 35 or 40 cents per case, varying with 

 localities, guarantee the samples to represent the average quality of the box. A dealer may sample his own goods 

 by giving a guarantee that the samples are a fair average. These samples are labeled and carefully packed in 

 boxes, and all sales are made by them. There are many towns where warehouses are erected and some business 

 is done ; indeed, almost every village in the tobacco-growing districts does more or less business in tobacco. 



PEICES OF TOBACCO. 



The average price of the crop of 1879 in the several counties and districts was as follows: New Haven county, 

 Connecticut, 14 cents; Middlesex, Hartford, and Tolland counties, Connecticut, 16 cents; for the Housatonic valley, 

 15 cents; Hampden county, Massachusetts, 9 cents; Cheshire county, New Hampshire, 9 cents. For the different 

 grades the following prices prevailed : 



It will be seen that the average price of the product in Middlesex, Hartford, and Tolland counties is highei 

 than in any other counties in the Connecticut valley, and yet the price of wrappers is no higher than in New Haven 

 county, and for inferior grades hardly equals the upper counties of the valley. This apparent anomaly is, however, 

 of easy explanation. The three counties of which Hartford forms the center have a much larger proportion of 

 fine wrappers, amounting to 66 per cent, of the crop, while the other counties have a larger proportion of inferior 

 grades. This would make the average of the crop in the first district named greater. Beside, in the upper part 

 of the valley, a larger proportion of Havana is raised, the seconds and fillers of which bring a much higher price 

 in the market than the seconds and fillers of the Connecticut Seed Leaf. 



As a general thing, the tobacco of the same variety grown in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont 

 does not sell as high by 25 per cent, as that grown in the Hartford district. 



The prices paid fanners for crop through of Connecticut Seed Leaf in the Housatonic valley from 1870 to 1879 

 are as follows: 



Havana began to be planted in the Housatonic valley about the year 1875, and the increased inquiry for it in 1877 

 induced a considerable planting, the farmers who had poor, thin soils finding it to be much more profitable than 

 the Connecticut Seed Leaf; but upon soils of marked fertility, generally, but not always, the hitter variety is preferred. 



