THE CUBA REVIEW 



31 





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Dinnei- Hour on a Partidos Tobacco Plantation Near Wajay, Havana Province. 



carrots make up a bale. A sort of heavy, strong crate is utilized in the baling process, 

 in the bottom of which is placed a wide and long palm boot softened by exposure tc^ 

 the dew. On each side of the crate a smaller palm boot is placed to form the side 

 of the bale. Two carrots are placed across the middle of the bottom, pointed ends in, 

 and then two layers of twelve carrots each, with their pointed ends resting on the 

 carrots already placed and pointing toward the middle of the bale are placed one in 

 each end of the crate. Two more carrots are now laid down crossing the inner ends of 

 these carrots, and the operation of placing two more layers of twelve carrots each is 

 repeated. The placing of two more cross carrots, two more layers of twelve carrots 

 each, and the final placing of two more cross carrots, make up a compact bale of 

 80 carrots. Small sheets of palm boot are placed at the corners of the top and bot- 

 tom of the bales where the pressure from the binding ropes will come, thus protecting 

 the tobacco from excessive crushing and possible cutting by the ropes. Another 

 large, long palm boot is then placed above the tobacco, and these are then bent around 

 the tobacco at each end and fastened temporarily with wooden pins passed through 

 holes made in the tops of the stakes forming the crate, the final fastening being 

 effected with ropes made from the bark of the "majagua" tree already mentioned. 

 In this way a bale is made up that is firm, strong, elastic, almost air and water tight, 

 except for the joints between the palm boot coverings, and in which the tobacco is in 

 the best of conditions to undergo its further sweating and curing processes. 



After the tobacco has reached this stage, it is usually taken to some city where 

 specially conistructed warehouses exist in which the final curing can be effected. In- 

 telligent care must be shown in the handling of tobacco fresh from the classification 

 house, as the treatment it receives depends entirely upon its moisture content upon 

 arrival and the quality of the leaf in the bales. Usually, when first received, the 

 bales are piled two or three deep with the ends of the bales upon the floor and upon 

 each other. Later another bale is added, and later still the bales are turned upon their 

 sides, their position being varied from time to time as examination and the condition 

 of their contents dictates. % 



