PROFITABLE FARMING. 



capable of producing in the greatest perfection, and the modes and management 

 to accomplish the best results from such choice. 



A deep rich soil, overlaying a red-clay subsoil, is best suited for dark, heavy 

 shipping tobaccos. 



A gravelly or sandy soil, with a red or brown subsoil, is best adapted to the 

 production of sweet fillers and stemming tobaccos. 



AUuvials and rich flats produce the best cigar stock. 

 • Experience has proved that a gray, sandy, or slaty top-soil, with a yellow 

 porous subsoil, is best for yellow wrappers and smokers. And these grades are 

 in such great demand, and command so much mor^ in price than any others, that 

 we propose, in this short treatise, to devote to them most space; for in the pro- 

 duction of these, tlie author has had most experience and success; and while the 

 production of "brights" requires more skill and careful management, they seldom 

 fail to make ample compensation for all the attention bestowed upon them. 



But unless the planter rnakes provision by building or arranging suitable 

 barns provided with flues, or prepares charcoal, he need not expect to succeed, 

 and had better aim at some other grade requiring less preparation, cost, and skiU. 



Log barns, ranging from sixteen to twenty feet square, are the sizes mostly 

 nsed. These should be built about twenty feet high in the body, andi covered 

 with shingles or boards. Large logs may be used nntil the pen is built about 

 seven feet high from the ground. Then if the size is twenty feet, lay off for five 

 rooms, four feet apart, and place tier poles across to form the lower tier. Raise 

 two logs higher all around, and put on another course of tier poles directly over 

 the first. Then, using smaller logs (cabin size), place on three logs higher all 

 around, laying on tier poles as before, and continue to elevate the' body of the 

 barn until you have five tiers. Then place two more logs around the plates, and 

 the pen is ready to be roofed. You will then have a barn with five rooms and 

 five tiers high. Mark you, the lower tiers are not firing tiers, but placed in the 

 barn for the convenience of hoisting, and for storing cured tobacco wJien neces- 

 sary. By this arrangement, the tiers are about three feet apart vertically, the 

 body of the barn a cube— as high as it is wide and deep— and the whole arrange- 

 ment conformable to the process of curing. The roof is so constructed, ,confor'm- 

 ing to the plan of the tiers below, as to contain three tiers above the joist, vary- 

 ing in length. Such a barn will hold about six hundred and, fifty to seven hun- 

 dred sticks of medium tobacco, six plants to the stick. To prepare for curing 

 brights, it must be chinked and daubed close inside and out. 



FLUES AND FLUE-CURING. 



Flues have almost entirely superseded charcoal for curing yellow tobacco, as 

 being cheaper and better every way. The heat is more readily controlled by 

 the use of flues — an important item in successful curing — and the tobacco cured 

 therewith is cleaner, brighter and sweeter than that cured with charcoal. The 

 flue is, moreover, the best mode for applying heat in the curing process for any 

 type of tobacco requiring the application of artificial heat, and may be used to 

 good advantage in drying out and seasoning those types cured mainly by the sun 

 and air, and preserving them from injury. Its use is fast " superseding the open 

 wood fire with its objectionable smoke," as predicted by the writer years ago. 



