M 



cos but not usable in cigars.) Buyers know pretty well in 

 advance about the quality of the crop, having observed 

 the growing fields and the harvests. The selling and buy- 

 ing of shade-grown tobacco operates under other pro- 

 cedures. Generally, this type is grown only for major 

 cigar manufacturers, or by packer-dealers who own the 

 farms and the harvests. 



Binder leaf cured in Massachusetts is delivered to the 

 Conn-Mass Tobacco Cooperative warehouses at Holyoke 

 and is occasionally stored in other towns by this organi- 

 zation. The Cooperative, an association of Havana Seed 

 and Broadleaf growers in the Connecticut Valley, was 

 organized in 1949. The leaf comes into the warehouse 

 untied and unsorted, in paper-covered packages usually 

 of 40 to 50 pounds in weight. After inspection, this 

 tobacco undergoes standard procedure: forced sweating 

 for a few weeks through circulation of hot air. The proc- 

 ess speeds up the necessary fermentation of tobacco— in 

 essence, a continuation of curing that ripens it further. 



ellowing leaf 



Far more labor is applied to cured shade-grown 

 tobacco than to the binder type. After barn curing it is 

 temporarily arranged in bulks, still on the sticks. Then 

 a group of leaves are tied together in small bundles 

 ("hands"), laid in wooden boxes and sent to packing 

 houses. There the loosened leaves are prepared for fer- 

 mentation by being built into bulks eight feet high, 

 twelve to sixteen feet long, and containing 2 to about 

 3 tons. Experiments are under way which will speed 

 the subtle process of fermentation without affecting leaf 



lO 



