TUBACCO MARKETS, 327 
bright golden brown, and nearly two feet in length, was 
carefully preserved for show on the parlor-mantel of the 
‘planter who raised it. 
fe After tying, the bundles are placed in bulk, and when 
again ‘in order,’ are ‘ prized’ or packed into the hogsheads. 
—n0 smoothly-planed and iron-hooped cask, by the way, but 
huge pine structures very roughly made. The old machine 
for prizing was a primitive affair, the upright beam through 
which ran another at right angles, turning slightly ona pivot, 
heavily weighted at one end, and used as a lever for com. 
pressing the brown mass into the hogsheads. Now, most 
well-to-do planters own a tobacco straightener and screw- 
press, inventions which materially lessen the manual labor 
of preparing the crop for market. "Each hogshead is branded 
with the name of the owner, and thus shipped to his com- 
mission-merchant, when the hogshead is ‘broken’ by tear- 
ae off a stave, thus exposing the strata of the bulk to view. 
Of late years some planters have been guilty of ‘ nesting,’ or 
placing prime leaf around the outer part and an inferior 
article in the center of the hogshead. 
“At a tobacco mart in Southside, occurred perhaps the 
only instance of negro-selling since the establishment of the 
Freedman’s Bureau. At every town is a huge platform scale 
for weighing wagon and load, deducting the weight of the 
former from the united weight of both to find the quantity 
of ‘tobacco offered for sale. A smal] planter has brought a 
lot of loose tobacco to market, which, being sold, was weighed 
in this manner, and for which the purchaser was about to 
pay, when a bystander quietly remarked, ‘You forgot to 
weigh the nigger. An explanation followed, and the 
tobacco, re-weighed, was found short 158 lbs., or the exact 
weight of the colored driver, who had, unobserved, been 
standing on the scales behind the cart while the first weigh- 
ing took place. : 
“Thirty years or more ago—before the Danville and 
Southside Railroads were built—the tobacco was principally 
carried to market on flat-boats, and the refrain to a favorite 
negro song was :— ’ 
“Oh, I’m gwine down to Town! 
An’ I’m gwine down to Town! 
I’m gwine down to Richmond Town 
To cayr my ’bacca down!” 
“Then all along the rivers, at every landing, was a tobacco 
warehouse, the ruins of some of which may still be seen. 
