B, 



d and take 



Cured tohacco is a couiinodily that must he marketed 

 promptly. Jt is a dehcate article of commerce, lia])le to 

 spoilage under unfavorahle weather conditions. 



As the cured leaves arc stripped and sorted a single 

 tie leaf is tied around the butts of a number of them to 

 make small bundles called "hands." (Though tied, 

 tobacco prepared in this manner for sale has long been 

 designated as "loose leaf," to distinguish it from tobacco 

 packed in hogsheads.) The hands are carefully stacked 

 in bulks, tips in, butts out, to retain moisture and then 

 trucked to auction warehouses. Not all Kentuck\- 

 tobacco goes to auction. A small part of the fire-cured 

 crops-in recent years under 10 percent of eastern dis- 

 trict, and an insignificant amount of the western district 

 type-is "country sales," being sold b\- farmers at their 

 barn doors. 



There have been little or no changes during the past 

 few years in the number of markets, warehouses or sell- 

 ing periods in the Kentucky tobacco-sales towns. The 

 1971 auction season was, therefore, a typical one. The 

 colorful, exciting annual event took place in 231 sales 

 warehouses of 30 Burley markets during the 1971-72 

 season. Sales began near the end of November and con- 

 cluded in mid-January except at Lexington, where 

 \olume usually necessitates closing a few weeks later. 

 Lexington, the world's largest "loo'se-leaf" sales center, 

 ranks first among Burley markets; gross sales totaled 

 about 65 million pounds of the 1971 crop. 



Burley auctions ran from 11 selling davs at Ma\ field 

 where other txpes of tobacco arc sold throughout the 

 sales season, to about 40 days at Lexincrtoii. Under 

 regulations, firms operating on a basket basis-hands" 

 are packed on baskets in sales lines on warehouse floors 



11 



