224 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1888 
large enough to top by the 20th of August, which 
will give it time to ripen by the 20th of September. 
Some seasons tobacco may be planted later, but it 
is unsafe iu this locality, for the frost may come and 
lay waste a summer's labour. 
Seed-Plants. — The earliest plants should be left for 
seed ; do not top them, but trim the teaves off at the 
top, to about ten to a plant. 
Four flourishing plants will yield one half -pint of 
good seed. The bud-worm should be kept from the 
seed-plants, as they will enter the pods and eat the 
seed. I have caught as many as twenty bud-worms 
on one neglected seed-plant. 
Suckering. — After the tobacco has been topped 
about a week, there will be little sprouts or suckers 
put forth on the stalk, at the but of every leaf. If 
they are neglected, they will grow up and go to 
seed, and take all the nourishment from the stalk, 
giving the plant a haggard appearance, aDd literally 
ruining the tobacco. These suckers must be strictly 
attended to ; they should be pulled off as soon as 
they have grown long enough to be conveniently 
taken hold of by the fingers. 
There are are generally three sets of suckers, some- 
times four. After one set is pulled off, in a week 
or so there will be another set put forth, in the 
same place, and so on until the tobacco is ripe. 
The better the worms and suckers are kept off, 
the better the tobacco will be. 
Habvesting and Cubing. — When the tobacco is ripe 
it has a yellow faded colour, and becomes brittle ; 
the surface of the leaf is rough and ridged. By bend- 
bng the leaf short between the fingers, it will break 
before it will double. 
The sticks to hang it on should be in readiness. The 
best mode of hanging or stringing, is with a V-shaped 
spear, made of iron or steel. The spear has a 
socket, large to admit the end of the stick. The 
sticks should be sharpened at one end to fit the socket; 
should be four feet six inches in length, two inches 
wide, and one inch thick. A stick of these dimen- 
sions will hold eight plants. 
Tke tobacco should be cut off just below the bottom 
leaf, then turn the plant upside down, and let it re- 
main so till the sun wilts it. When it is wilted it 
can be handled without breaking ; then it should be 
taken up and laid in piles of eight stalks each, placing 
the buts of the stalks towards the sun, to prevent 
it from sun-burning. When it is sun-burnt it turns 
black, and it cannot be cured any other colour than 
black, which ruins its sale. 
The sticks should be strewed along, one stick to 
a pile ; place the spear on the end of the stick, and set 
the stick upright ; then take up the tobacco, one 
stalk at a time, and thrust it on the stick, lotting 
the spear pass through the stalk, about six inches 
from the butend ; then take the spear off and take 
up the stick, and shake the tobacco out straight, and 
set the stick up with the buts towards the sun. 
Some tobacco-growers prefer splitting the stalk from 
the top down to within about six inches of the but 
then hang it on the sticks. But I cannot agree with 
them, for it is more difficult to handle, and is apt 
to slip off of the stick, when moving it ; besides, the 
tobacco cured in this manner is not so heavy as if 
it was speared. It dries out quicker by being split, but 
the substance evaporates instead of remaining in the 
leaf. I am not certain that it injures the taste of 
the tobacco, but I am certain that split tobacco is 
lighter than that which is speared. 
iS'ome prefer hanging the tobacco on scaffolds in the 
field until it is ready to be put in the barn and 
cured by fire. But it is the safest to house it as 
soon as it is strung on the sticks. 
Scaffolding is done by placing poles on forks, about 
four feet apart, and four or five feet from tbe ground ; 
then hang the tobacco between the poles, letting tbe 
ends of the sticks rest on the poles. This procedure 
is unsafe, for the rain may come and saturate the 
tobacco and wash off the gum, thus making it light 
and chaffy. 
Tobacco should not be exposed to the weather after 
it is cut. It should be immediately conveyed to the 
barn and hungup. As soon as it gets about half yel- 
lowed, a slow fire should be started under it ; if made 
too hot at first, the tobacco will turn black. About 
the second day the ends of the leaves will begiu to curl 
up; then the fire should be gradually increased, till 
it heats tbe tobacco blood warm; it should be kept up 
so till the leaf is thoroughly cured. 
If this rule be strictly adhered to, the tobacco will be 
cured bright. The brighter it is cured the better it sells. 
Our barns, in this State, are generally built of logs, 
some have frames. The barn should be made tight up 
to the tobacco, which should hang about eight feet 
from the ground ; above this leave cracks or air-holes 
sufficient for free ventilation. 
A barn to hold two-and-a-half acres of tobacco, which 
is as much as one man can attend to, should be twenty, 
four feet square. It should have five tiers of poles, 
the lowest about six feet from the ground ; these 
should extend across the barn, and be fastened at each 
end into the walls. The poles should be four feet 
apart, and the tiers directly one above another. 
The sticks which contain the tobacco should be placed 
within eight inches of each other, on all the poles 
except the bottom ones, which should be left vacant 
directly over the fire. When tobacco is nearly cured, 
it very readily catches fire. 
If there be a wet spell of weather before the stalks 
are thoroughly dry, build a fire under the tobacco suf- 
ficiently hot to keep it dry. It should not get damp 
and plient until the stalks are dry, then it may be 
allowed to get damp. 
Stripping will be the farmer's labour during damp wea- 
ther, until his tobacco is stripped and ready for market. 
The lugs, shipping, and manufacturing, which are 
worst, medium, and best qualities, should be separated 
at stripping. The luys, or worst quality, are found at 
the bottom of the plant; they are chaffy and light 
leaves, and should be stripped from the stalk and tied 
in bundles by themselves with all of the ragged black, 
and injured leaves. 
Tbe second quality, or shipping tobacco, is a grade 
above the lugs ; it is the red or brown tobacco ; this 
should also be tied in separate bundles. 
The best, or manufacturing, is tbe finest and bright- 
est leaves, and should be put iu bundles by itself. 
In stripping, the stems of the leaves should be 
broken off as close as possible to the stalk ; this adds 
to the weight of the tobacco. 
In forming a bundle the buts of the leaves should 
be placed evenly and closely together and pressed 
tightly in the hand ; then a leaf should be folded to 
form a wrapper two inches in width; then wrap it 
tightly and smoothly around the buts of the the leaves, 
winding it from the end down, about two inches and 
a -half; then open the bundle in the middle and tuck 
the wrapper leaf through the opening and draw it 
snug, so that when the opening is closed the wrapper 
leaf will remain ; this forms a bundle which we call a 
"hand of tobacco." 
The hands should be strung ou sticks and hoisted 
up in the barn on the tier-poles ; eighteen or twenty 
hands may be put on each stick, at equal distances apart. 
Bui king and packing. — Let the tobacco hang in the 
barn until within a week or two of hogsheading, take 
it down, remove it from the sticks, and put it in a 
bulk. This is done by making a platform, and cover- 
ing with straw or hay ; then lay the hands of tobacco 
side by side, in layers around, with the buts outward, 
in the same manner as wheat or oats are stacked. 
It the atmosphere is dry, the bulk should be covered 
up closely, so that the tobacco will retain its moisture. 
It should not be too damp, for there is danger of its 
molding in the bulk. 
If it should mold, hang it up again in the barn, 
and put fire under it. The mold that it gets in the bulk 
is generally the yellow mold, which is the most fatal. 
It sometimes gets a white mold on it, while hanging 
in the bam, wheu the atmosphere is very damp and 
warm, but this does not materially injure it, for it will 
rub off while drawing the tobacco through the hands, 
It should be drawn through the hands every time it is 
handled, to keep it straight, and to give it a silky tex- 
ture, which adds to its price. 
