302 CULTURE, MANUFACTURE, ETC., OF TOBACCO. 



until it is reduced to one half its bulk ; then another 

 similar layer is placed upon it, again squeezed, and 

 succeeded by as many as are required to fill the 

 cask. 



The cask has now to be transmitted to the shipping 

 warehouse, and a rude mode of doing this fifty years 

 ago is described and pictured in Tatham's book on 

 Tobacco Culture ; and consisted in affixing a couple of 

 shafts of hickory-wood by a pin into each end of the 

 cask, so that the whole looked something like a garden- 

 roller. The cask was dragged along the country thus, 

 and was protected with an extra hooping of hickory- 

 wood, to prevent undue wear ; or by a series of blocks 

 like segments of a circle, fixed round the circumference 

 of the tobacco-hogshead by means of augur holes, and 

 wooden pins driven into the bulk of tobacco, through 

 the staves of the cask. 



The export warehouses receive the planter's stock,, 

 which is inspected by proper officers. The cask is 

 broken open, and the closely packed leaf is cleaved by 

 a wedge driven into its bulk by a huge hand-mall, 

 from this a few bundles are taken for examination; 

 and should necessity arise, the operation is repeated in 

 other parts of the mass. If the leaf appears to be well 

 cured, and not of bad quality or grown from " suck- 

 ers," they generally " pass " the tobacco on the spot, 

 and it may be sold ; but should the contrary be the 

 case, the whole hogshead is condemned and burnt. 

 If " passed " as good and marketable, it is replaced in 

 the cask, subjected to another pressure, and made 



