TOBACCO. 



27 



dark color is desired, which is not so fashionable as formerly, it can be secured 

 as easily over flues as over wood fires. But the world wants colory tobacco, and 

 tJiis can be produced certainly better with the flue than in any other way. Besides 

 by the flue the leaf is cured sweet and free from smoke or soot. 



A skillful curer can produce the colors most in demand, and by the flue bet- 

 ter "and with more certainty than in any other way. The main object of the 

 author is to induce planters, who have never used flues, to try them for all 

 grades. 



. Housing the dark shipping type to be cured by open wood fires ; the practice of generations until the 

 development of other types and newer and better methods. 



CURING BRIGHT YELLOW TOBACCO. 



There are two modes for curing yellow tobacco-^ — one with charcoal and th& 

 other with flues. The first is the primitive mode, but is fast giving place to the 

 latter, which is cheaper and more efiicient, and is being adopted by most of our 

 best planters. The chief agent in either mode is heat — a dry, curing heat — to- 

 expel the sap from the leaves, stems, and stalks of the plants, and catch the cblor, 

 yellow, next to nature's color, green, and to fix it indelibly. This is the science- 

 of curing yellow tobacco. . There are seven prismatic colors — ^that of green tobacca 

 occupying the middle of the prism, By the process of nature, leaves in drying 

 descend in color from green, first to yellow, then orange, then red, and finally lose^ 

 all color as they go to decay. Now, a quick dry heat, so regulated as to dry out 

 the leaf and catch the yellow, and fix it, is the modus operandi of curing fancy 

 bright tobacco. 



A barn containing seven hundred sticks of green tobacco, six medium plants 

 on each stick, holds along with the tobacco four thousand five hundred to five- 

 thousand pounds of water, which must be expelled in from eighty-five to one hun- 

 dred hours. 



Charcoal produces an open, dry heat, well suited for the purpose; but its prep- 

 aration is costly, its use tedious, dirty and laborious, and it deposits a black dust- 

 on the leaf thajt is objectionable. With flues (see diagrams) constructed with 



