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Edible Products. 



matulas are then stacked as closely as possible in the press again (remembering the 

 thermometer) and carefully covered as before with the corn-bag mats. This time the 

 temperature will rise even more slowly, but will eventually reach 120 to 130 and go 

 as gradually down again ; if, however, wet weather prevails for some time the 

 temperature will rise quickly, and, if the tobacco is not taken down and re-stacked, 

 would probably go over the mark, i.e., 130, and spoil ; and if left long enough would 

 catch fire. When the temperature of press No. 2 has risen and fallen as described, 

 the tobacco must be allowed to remain undisturbed until the whole crop has 

 been through the same processes when the classing is commenced; beginning, in 

 a large plantation, with press No. 2, No. 3, and so on. The ' classing ' of the crop 

 is for the guidance of the manufacturer who buys it. 



Classing. 



This operation is a very important one, and requires considerable practice 

 before it can be done at profitable speed ; it entails the handling and inspec- 

 tion of every leaf. Six classes are made, three of carpa and three of tripa : — 

 car pa larga, carpa mediana, and carpa courta ; tripa larga, tripa median a, and tripa 

 courba; meaning respectively long, medium, and short wrappers, and ditto fillers. 



As before mentioned, the tobacco is classed roughly when taken out 

 of the first press and made up into matulas, square bundles some five inches 

 or six inches thick ; now, after the last slow fermentation, the matulas are 

 opened up and the leaves made up into ' manitas '—small, neat bundles that 

 can easily be encircled by the thumb and forefinger (about forty leaves) at the 

 place in which it is tied, i.e., about one and a half inches from the base end ; this time 

 exercising greater care in the selection of the leaves. It will then be found that, 

 owing to the rapidity with which the stripping had to be done after the first 

 fermentation, some tripa leaves had crept into the carpa matulas and carpa into the 

 tripa matulas. It might appear that the first rough classing is unnecessary, 

 since the leaves have to be carefully gone through a second time ; in practice, 

 however, it is not so. If it were not that, a carpa matula contained mostly 

 carpa, or that a tripa matula could not be depended on to yield 90 per cent, of tripa, 

 a large number of leaves would be exposed to the air unnecessarily, and this 

 exposure means loss of aroma. The work of classing and making manitas must, 

 therefore, be so arranged that the leaves are exposed as little as possible. 



A broad table is erected in one of the rooms around which the workmen 

 are seated ; those on one side take each a tripa matula and those on the other take 

 the carpa ; the former when classing and making up, put out the carpa, and 

 the latter the tripa, these being gathered every few minutes by the man at 

 the end of the table who makes them up. A few fonque leaves will also turn 

 up and must be relegated to that despised pilon at the other end of the house. In 

 making up the manitas all the leaves must be placed, so that the bases are even 

 and that the surface or face of each leaf is turned in towards the centre; they should 

 be neatly rounded off and tied with a strip of thatch-heart. As they are finished 

 they are quickly packed away closely in a small improvised pilon, carpa on one side 

 and tripa on the other ; and at the end of the day, carpa and tripa are weighed off 

 separately and stacked neatly side by side in rows, with the heads of the second 

 row of manitas covering about one-fourth of the width of the first, in press No. 

 1, which is now empty, as the whole of the dry tobacco has been fermented. 



If the matulas, after having undergone the long, slow fermentation, have 

 become somewhat dry on the press being opened for classing, they should be 

 treated in the following manner :— 



Without disturbing a leaf, the surface of the tobacco in the press should 

 be lightly sprayed with a mixture made up of 1 oz. of essence of peppermint to 



