THE MARYLAND OR BALTIMORE TYPES OF TOBACCO. 51 
of as Bay tobacco, was nearly all cured by open fires in rather small, 
tightly daubed log barns. The cured product, therefore, had a 
characteristic smoky odor and flavor similar to the dark-fired tobacco 
of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The resemblance ceased 
here, however, as this Bay tobacco, as well as that of southern Mary- 
land and eastern Ohio, was characteristically hght in color and body 
and deficient in strength and richness, as the dark-fired was char- 
acteristically heavy in body, dark in color, and very rich in so-called 
oil and gum. In earlier years the southern Maryland tobacco was, 
to a considerable extent, cured or at least dried out by open fires, 
but the practice there has been abandoned. A characteristic south- 
ern Maryland curing barn is shown in figure 20. A sample of Mary- 
land colory leaf export tobacco is shown in figure 21. 
The eastern Ohio tobacco district was settled in the years suc- 
ceeding the Revolutionary War, principally by pioneers from Mary- 
land, who carried the production of tobacco with them just as the 
pioneers from Virginia and North Carolina carried the production 
into Kentucky and Tennessee. Naturally they carried the seed 
and methods of producing tobacco in Maryland with them and 
they continued to market the tobacco through Baltimore, the market 
with which they were most familiar and where the type of tobacco 
which was thus produced could be marketed to the best advantage. 
Eastern Ohio tobacco is often spoken of as spangled tobacco 
from its characteristic of curing up in blotched areas over the leaf, 
changing sharply from a clear straw yellow to a clear brown or 
red, that is, it is a two-colored tobacco. The yellow colors are 
most desired and bring the highest prices. The tobacco is classed 
as yellow spangled when the much-desired clear yellow color pre- 
dominates and as red spangled when the red predominates. 
Eastern Ohio tobacco is typically a fire-cured tobacco, but flues 
made of loosely laid-up stones are generally used instead of building 
open fires on the ground within the barn. In this way the fires are 
made and kept up from the outside, -but the smoke escapes inside, 
giving the tobacco a smoky or creosotic odor and flavor. In later 
years sheet-iron flues have been substituted for the rock flues to 
some extent and the process of curing is similar to the method 
pursued in the bright belt of eastern North Carolina and South 
Carolina. As in the new section of the bright belt also, the crop 
is harvested by picking the leaves from the stalks as they ripen 
in the field, but they are strung with a needle and string and placed 
on a scaffold outside the barn for a day or two to yellow before 
being placed in the barn and the fires started. As an aid in pro- 
ducing brighter colors, the eastern Ohio growers plant the tobacco 
very thickly, about 10,000 plants to the acre, and top very high, 
244 
