of mixing the hands from several baskets results in a more uniform pack, and 
is a common practice among dealers and exporters, and, to some extent, manu- 
facturers. The workers are trained to watch the color and quality, and if a 
bundle (hand) does not match the grade it is usually laid aside for re-classi- 
fying. This pulling-out of out-of-grade hands is known as "bundle-picking." 
(In areas where the tobacco is marketed untied, it is placed on a conveyor 
belt, and out-of-grade leaves picked off.) Tobacco that is to be stemmed be- 
fore redrying is placed on a conveyor belt that carries it to the stemming 
machines, rather than on the sticks. 
When the sticks full of bundles reach the end of the hanging line, they 
are placed on chain conveyors that carry them slowly through the redrying ma 
chine. (For untied tobacco and stemmed leaf ("strips"), belts known as "apron 
conveyors" are used.) The operation takes about 40 minutes. The tobacco 
moves first through a steam heated chamber where practically all of the mois- 
ture is removed by means of air directed or blown through and over the leaf. 
It then passes through a cooling section in preparation for the ordering sec- 
tion, where a controlled and uniform amount of moisture is added. As the "re- 
dried" tobacco emerges from the other end of the machine, the sticks are re- 
moved from the conveyor, and the tobacco pulled off, placed in the hogsheads, 
and packed under pressure. 
A large proportion of flue-cured, burley, and Maryland tobacco purchased 
for domestic usage, as well as some that is to be exported, is stemmed before 
being redried and packed for storage. This means that the tough stems and 
veins in the center are removed, leaving only the tender part of the leaves. 
This practice of stemming before storage has several advantages: (1) Stem 
ming costs are less, and the leafy tissue is damaged less in the stemming op- 
eration, when the leaf is stemmed in the green stage, than is the case when it 
is stemmed after storage; (2) a more uniform redrying operation is possible 
when the hands have been broken and the stems removed; (3) storage costs are 
less, because less storage space is required; (4) the risk of spoilage in 
storage is reduced; and (5) handling costs are reduced, because the leaf moves 
directly from storage to the manufacturing plant without the intermediate step 
for stemming. 
The bulk of the stemming is now done by the "tipping and threshing" meth- 
od. However, in untied tobacco, the "tipping'' part of the stemming operation 
is not generally practiced, because the leaves are "tangled,'' and not in or- 
derly arrangement. The bundles of tobacco are placed on the conveyor belt 
with the tips all in one direction against an adjustable "tipping" board that 
regulates the length of the tip to be removed. They pass through rotary 
knives that cut off about the first 6 or 7 inches, or usually 1/3 of the leaf. 
The cut-off tips are separately discharged from the conveyor belt and moved by 
a belt system to another location to be combined later with the "strips" from 
the lower part of the leaf. The stem is left in this tip since it is very 
small in diameter. 
The bundle is then broken and the stem removed from the remainder, or 
lower 2/3 of the leaf, as it passes through thresher separators that separate 
the leaf tissue from the stem. In the operation, the unstemmed leaf is fed 
onto a rotating toothed cylinder, and the teeth pass through stationary combs, 
ETAGy. 
