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76 



THE ILLINOIS FABMER. 





want to grow from every bed at the base of the 

 leaves. Tobacco, like all other plants striving 

 hard to re-produce seed, in a mud they must not 

 neglected, as these suckers will, or would soon ruin 

 your whole prospect for filling either your pockets 

 or your tobacco barns. 



AVORMING. 



This is simply from the time the plants begin to 

 be infected with worms, looking carefully over the 

 plot in tobacco, plant by plant, leaf by leaf, every 

 day — best early in the morning — destroying every 

 worm and every nest of eggs is the only safeguard 

 to prevent their -lavages. Carelessness in this 

 matter, for even one or two days, may cost you 

 half your tobacco crop. Almost every one at all 

 acquainted with agriculture knows what a tobacco 

 worm is, from having seen their ravages on the 

 tomato of our gardens. They grow in a day or 

 two from a mere nothing to a size almost incredi- 

 ble, say as large as your forefinger, and in some- 

 time will eat fifty times their own weight in tobac- 

 co. Young turke.ys,with a little training, will as- 

 sist in destroying them. Keep an old hen with her 

 brood shut up through an afternoon and night. 

 Early in the morning take her and brood to the 

 tobacco patch ; they will soon learn to take row by 

 row, and are as sharp eyed in looking for worms 

 as any hand you would pay twenty dollars a 

 month to. 



CUTTIXG AXD CL'EIXG. 



We will suppose the crop ready for the knife by 

 its slightly changing color, and firmness of leaf 

 when taken in hand. This is the most difficult 

 part of the story, many things being hard to ex- 

 plain on paper, and in detail would fill a volume. 

 Have your sticks ready, four feet two inches long. 

 The heavier sorts are always cut up stock and all ; 

 cut Avith your knife down through the center of 

 the stalk to within a few inches of the bottom. 

 "When cut off it is often scaffolded in the field, to 

 wilt before being hauled to the barn. Care must 

 be used that it does not get sun scalded. The 

 light kinds are usually stripped in the field and 

 hauled to the sheds or barns. A sled and two 

 horses are best for hauling to prevent being bruis- 

 ed. Some only take off the lower half of the 

 leaves first. This kind is strung on strong twine, 

 using the same kind of sticks as the first — say four 

 feet two inches long and one inch thick, a triangu 

 lar shape being best — to one end tie your twine 

 cutting it off five to six inches longer than vour 

 stick ; thread the other end and string your leaves 

 three or four at a time ; when full tie the string to 

 the other end of the stick. The needle should pass 

 through the stem of the leaves about one inch from 

 the end ; it is now ready to hang in the sheds or 

 barns. Sometimes when the weather is dry and 



sun not too hot, they are scaffolded in the open air 

 for a few days. This sort is generally air cured in 

 open barns. But the heavier kinds are, being wilt- 

 ed, put into tight barns and best cured by fire heat. 

 Barns may be of any size from 16x18 to 28x100 — 

 always remembering that joists four feet apart must 

 be placed, say first tier six feet from ground, and 

 at every succeeding four feet upward, Barns are 

 built to take in five and six tiers of tobacco, from 

 twenty to twenty-four feet high to the roof. Log 

 barns, chinked and plastered with mud, are much 

 used for fire curing tobacco. They are generally 

 shedded all around. When the tobacco is first 

 hung, and afterwards moved into the tight barns 

 to be fired. Great care must be used in firing to- 

 bacco, as many houses have been burned just by a 

 leaf of tobacco falling into the fire. I have an 

 idea that brick flues, such as are used in warming 

 green houses would answer for curing tobacco, and 

 as the furnace can be outside, would be entirely 

 safe from accidents. 



STRIPPING. 



After the tobacco is cured the next move will 

 be to strip, put into hands ; this can only be done 

 when in case, or in other words, during damp 

 weather, when it can be handled without break- 

 ing the leaves. Leaves enough are put together 

 to form a hand that will be one and a half inches 

 in diameter at the stem end, and wrapped one- 

 fourth of an inch from the end. These hands are 

 then hung up to qualify which will usually require 

 say three weeks. As soon as it comes in case take 

 down and bulk, when it is ready for packing. I 

 should have said that great care is necessary to 

 keep each grade or quality by itself in tying the 

 hands, many cultivators making five or six grades 

 or qualities. But as most Illinois tobacco will be 

 sold to middle men to prize and pack, I leave this 

 part of the subject unnoticed, as this article has 

 already taken more space than when first intended. 

 I will merely mention that in most localities men 

 c^ be found who understand tobacco in all its dif- 

 ferent stages. Such men should be consulted by 

 those not experienced; My object being more to 

 call attention to a great source of profit than to 

 produce a guide for the grower. That the experi- 

 enced tobacco grower will find anything new in 

 this article I disclaim. Many details are unavoid- 

 ably omitted, as my own time and the space our 

 friend, the Editor, can spare in his valuable jour- 

 nal admonish me to leave unnoticed many items 

 which would make the notes more satisfactory to 

 me, and more plain to the novice in tobacco grow- 

 ing. 



In conclusion I would say, hardly any two tobac- 

 co growers agree in its culture. 

 Ashley, III., Jan. 25, 1863. 



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