92 EXPORT AND MANUFACTURING TOBACCOS. 
moré until well under way in the curing process. It is then placed 
in the barn and the curing process finished as with any air-cured 
tobacco. This exposure to the sun is thought to sweeten and im- 
prove its flavor for chewing purposes. As a matter of fact, how- 
ever, owing largely to the increased cost of labor and greater expense 
in handling, the typical sun-curing process is now but little practiced 
and tobacco in the Sun-Cured district is, for the most part, just 
an air-cured tobacco, as is Burley or Green River or the cigar types. 
Such special qualities as the so-called ‘‘Sun-Cured”’ tobacco pos- 
sesses In contradistinction from other air-cured types are really due, 
therefore, to soil and climatic modifications, methods of cultivation, 
and seed rather than to the process of curing. The seed used in 
the Sun-Cured district, however; is practically the same as that 
used in the other dark-tobacco districts of Virginia, Kentucky, and 
Tennessee. Figure 35 shows the tobacco ‘‘sunning”’ on the scaffold 
Fig. 35.—Sunning tobacco in the Virginia Sun-Cured district, Caroline County, Va. © 
near the open south side of the curing barn. In case of rain it is 
quickly removed to the shed. 
USES OF: ‘‘SUN-CURED’’ TOBACCO. 
‘“‘Sun-Cured”’ tobacco practically all goes into domestic consump- 
tion in the form of flat plug, both the wrapper and the filler being 
of this type. It makes a sweet but rather strong chew, much in 
favor by chewers, especially in Virginia and North Carolina. 
Nearly all the ‘‘Sun-Cured”’ tobacco is manufactured in the fac- 
tories at Winston Salem, N. C., and at Richmond, Va. 
DISTRIBUTION OF ACREAGE. 
In former days ‘‘Sun-Cured”’ tobacco was extensively grown in 
several of the south side counties of the State, and a little ‘‘Sun- 
Cured,”’ or, more correctly speaking, air-cured, tobacco is still pro- 
244 
