VIRGINIA TOBACCO SHEDS. 409 
runs an elevated platform for placing the tobacco leaves in 
bulk; and, commencing at a safe distance from the trench, 
up to the top of the building, reach beams stretching across 
for the reception of the pine laths, from which are suspended 
the tobacco plants. Many of the tobacco sheds at the South) 
are built like those of New England, but many log structures 
are still to be seen and , 
many planters prefer them 
to those made like other 
frame buildings. The old 
Virginia planters of a 
hundred years ago, built 
rough log sheds for hous- 
ing the plants, which 
afforded little protection 
from wind and rain, which, 
in consequence, injured 
much of the tobacco hang- 
ing around the sides of 
the building. Tatham gives the following description of 
the “ Tobacco house and its variety ” in his work on tobacco. 
“The barn which is appropriated to the use of receiving 
and curing this crop, is not, in the manner of other barns, 
connected with the farm yard, so that the whole occupation 
may be rendered snug and compact, and occasion little waste 
of time by inconsiderate and useless locomotion; but it is 
constructed to suit the particular occasion in point of size, 
and is generally erected in, or by the side of, each respective 
piece of tobacco ground ; or sometimes in the woods, upon 
some hill or particular site which may be convenient to more 
than one field of tobacco. The sizes which are most generally 
built where this kind of culture prevails, are what are called 
forty-feet, and sixty-feet tobacco houses; that is, of these 
lengths respectively, and of a proportionate width ; and the 
plate of the wall, or part which supports the eaves of the 
roof, is generally elevated from the groundsel about the 
pitch of twelve feet. About twelve feet pitch is indeed a 
good height for the larger crops ; because this will allow four 
pitch each to three successive tiers of tobacco, besides those 
which are hung in the roof; and this distance admits a free 
MODERN VIRGINIA SHED 
