PREPARATIONS FOR CUTTING TOBACCO. 307 



the leaf again the elasticity it had, when declared to be 

 " in case " by the grower. 



The lighter kinds of tobacco such as Returns, 

 Orinoco, &c, are very sparingly wetted; only just 

 sprinkled, and not allowed to soak. They are just 

 sufficiently damp to squeeze into form in the box; 

 and owing to their dryness, are less easily cut than 

 damper tobaccos, which owe their dark colour princi- 

 pally to " liquoring ; " and to increase this, the manu- 

 facturer saves the stained water which drains from the 

 leaves, to wet the tobacco with, over and over again ; 

 nothing is " wasted " in a tobacco manufactory, as our 

 snuff-making notes will show. 



These leaves, or rather the half-leaves, having soaked 

 sufficiently, are now lifted in masses by both arms 

 toward the breast of the workman, and so thrown 

 dexterously forward, that they fall on the floor in 

 regular layers ; a process, like many others used by 

 manufacturers, most difficult to teach, or to be done by 

 the uninitiated, but effected with ease and rapidity 

 by the practised hand. The layers are then placed in 

 shallow wooden boxes, measuring about fourteen inches 

 each way and two inches deep, and are piled in them 

 to the height of six inches ; each tray is then placed in 

 a press, and others similarly filled are placed over them, 

 until the press is filled ; the whole are then squeezed 

 till they are reduced to one third their bulk, or till the 

 boxes touch each other ; and the six inch depth of the 

 tobacco leaf, has been compressed into a solid cake of 

 two inches in thickness. Here it remains several 



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