TOBACCO 165 



feet deep. The piles are torn down and rearranged from time 

 to time in order to maintain as nearly as possible a uniform 

 temperature throughout the mass of tobacco. 



The grading of tobacco is a matter of technical skill acquired 

 only by years of practice. Accurate grading requires a quick 

 eye for minute differences in color. Skilled tobacco graders 

 separate what to the uninitiated appears to be a rather uniform 

 grade of tobacco into 15 to 20 color grades. The leaves are also 

 graded according to size and shape. In the system adopted 

 in Sumatra only about 5 per cent, of a carefully cured crop 

 is considered worthy of being classed as first-grade wrapper 

 tobacco. 



The agricultural methods adopted in the production of to- 

 bacco vary greatly in different countries. In general, tobacco 

 is known to be a crop which rather rapidly exhausts soil for 

 further crops of tobacco. In some of the tobacco districts of 

 the Southern States a system of rotation has been adopted 

 whereby tobacco appears on the same land only once in 3 or 4 

 years. In some of the tropical countries it is considered unde- 

 sirable to plant the same land to tobacco except after an 

 interval of 7 or 8 years. It will thus be apparent that the 

 cultivation of tobacco is a special business requiring experience 

 in all phases of the industry and necessitating definite plans of 

 rotation so that the yield and quality of the crop may be main- 

 tained. 



