62 CIRCULAR 249, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
The requirements of an auction warehouse are ample floor space 
on a single floor, and uniformity of lighting (fig. 29). In meeting these 
primary requirements a type of architecture has been evolved which is 
so distinctive that an auction warehouse can be recognized almost as 
far as it can be seen; the low roof, studded with skylights, character- 
izes it at once (fig. 30). Within is a spacious floor of planking or con- 
AMA 1450 
Figure 30.—Airplane photograph of typical auction warehouse located at Lake 
City, 8. C., showing the skylights for obtaining uniform light on tobacco offered 
for sale. Special ribbed glass is used for diffusing the light. Five drive-ins 
may be seen at the front of the warehouse. On the right or north side may be 
seen shelters under which trucks are loaded with tobacco after the sale, for 
transporting it to the different company handling plants. These arrangements 
are fairly typical of auction warehouses or sales floors throughout the Southern 
States where tobacco is sold at auction. This warehouse has a floor space of 
approximately 90,000 square feet, and a capacity of approximately 750,000 
pounds of tobacco. 
crete, with a driveway down one side or possibly both sides, usually 
3 or 3% feet below the floor level, to facilitate unloading. At the front 
end is the office, and usually about halfway down one side are the 
scales. There must be a drive on one or both sides where farmers 
may unload their tobacco and arrange it in neat piles on the trays, or 
baskets as they are known. 
Farmers deliver their tobacco in wagons or trucks and build it up 
in orderly piles on the baskets. It is trucked first to the scales where 
a ticket is prepared showing the grower’s name, the number of pounds, 
and the serial number of the lot, and containing spaces for indicating 
later the name of the buyer, his private grade mark, and the price 
per pound. The tobacco is next trucked to its place on the warehouse 
floor where it is arranged in long rows (fig. 31). 
The sales are conducted rapidly. In the flue-cured and Burley 
districts the sale seldom is less than 360 baskets per hour, and rates 
