Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce Part 37

"We believe in small barns for any kind of curing. A house built 16 feet inside and divided into four rooms and six tier high in the body is the preferable size for flue or coal curing. For flues they should be built on a very slightly sloping place; just enough to make the flues draw well. Flues four inches lower at the eye than the chimney will be slope enough. The door should always be between the flues and in the end of the house, to prevent the drip from falling before the door and the eye of the flues. The tiers should begin eight feet above the ground and be placed two feet above each other to the top. They should be placed across the house so that the roof tier can conveniently be placed above them. The door, three feet wide and six feet high, furnished with a good, close shutter. A barn of this size will cure 800 sticks of common size tobacco, which will weigh about 1200 lbs. The proper construction of flues is of great importance; they should be built of any stone that will stand fire without bursting. White sand-stone, b.a.s.t.a.r.d soap-stone, or any other that does not contain flint. The size of a flue for a sixteen foot barn, is generally about 12 inches wide by 14 inches high inside. Not much care need be taken to have them smooth on the outside.

If stone can be had to make the inside smooth so as not to obstruct the putting on of wood, it is all that is necessary. They should be run just far enough from the house-side not to set the house on fire, and there is not as much danger of this as may be supposed. Run the walls of the house-side all around, running the stem out at the middle of the upper side. The stem should be run far enough above the wall of the house to avoid danger of sparks from the chimney. The height of the inside of the flue should be preserved its whole length. The width may be slightly decreased from the elbow to the chimney. The inner wall is carried all around. But too much explanation bewilders; we think we have said enough. As before said, we like small barns; where too much tobacco is together, it all can not receive the heat alike, which is our main objection to large barns. As to the number of barns necessary, we would say that there ought to be enough to receive all the crop without moving any. Say one sixteen-foot barn to every 8,000 hills of tobacco planted. As a general rule, plant one thousand hills for every hundred sticks house-room. That is, if you have three barns plant 24,000 hills, and if it is common tobacco, they will receive it. A much larger quant.i.ty may be saved in this number of barns by curing and moving out, but it is very troublesome."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Persian tobacco shed.]

In Kentucky and Tennessee the tobacco barns resemble those of Ohio and the other Western states, and are large, commodious structures, provided with every facility for curing the plants. In other tobacco-growing countries the tobacco barns and sheds differ but little from those in America, the only difference being in form and building material. In countries where tobacco is a government monopoly, large and comfortable buildings are provided for the crop with all the necessary accessories for the curing, packing, and storing of the tobacco. In South America many of the sheds are large and low, built on the plantation, and close to the tobacco field. In Cuba, the curing houses are located on the _vegas_, and as soon as the tobacco is cut it is placed on the poles to dry or cure. In Asia, a large quant.i.ty of the tobacco is cured in the peasants' huts, where the smoke is said to impart additional flavor to the already fragrant leaves. In the Philippines the largest tobacco sheds are found, described by Gironiere as "vast sheds," and of sufficient capacity to hold acres of the leaves. In Persia, where the celebrated s.h.i.+raz tobacco is grown, the sheds are simply covered buildings without any boards on the sides, the only protection afforded from the weather being supplied by light, th.o.r.n.y bushes, so that the plants may be exposed to the wind. After fully curing, the tobacco is removed to another drying-house and turned every day. The drying-houses in other tobacco-growing countries differ but little from those described, while the manner of curing is similar, the plants being "fired,"

sun-cured, or air-dried--the three modes now employed in drying the leaves. If the tobacco of the tropics is fragrant while growing, it is doubly so after being harvested and carried to the sheds. The odor from the well-filled barns is borne on the breeze alike to friend and foe of the plant. As the process of drying goes on, the plants gradually lose the strong perfume emitted during the earlier stages of curing, and by the time the leaves are "cured down" and the sheds closed, but little odor issues from the plants, and this continues to be the case until the leaves are entirely dried.

CHAPTER XIII.

TOBACCO CULTURE.

Tobacco at the present time is one of the great products of the world.

As an article of agriculture and of commerce, it holds an important place among the great staples, while as a luxury, its use has become as extensive as its culture. The tobacco plant is now cultivated in nearly all parts of the world with varying success, according to the system of cultivation adopted by its growers. Primarily cultivated by the aborigines of America in the rude manner common to uncivilized races, the plant has, by numerous experiments and careful culture, become one of the greatest of agricultural products. When first discovered by the Spanish and Portuguese, the plant was small, and in flavor "poor and weak and of a byting taste." As soon, however, as the Spaniards began its cultivation in the islands of St. Domingo and Trinidad, attention was paid to developing it, and in a few years the description we find of the latter variety is that it is "large, sharp, and growing two or three yards from the ground."

At the close of the sixteenth century the Portuguese began its cultivation in Portugal, the soil of which seemed well adapted to the plant, and still further increased the size and quality of the leaf.

Tobacco is now cultivated through a wider range of temperature than any other tropical plant, and whether grown amid the sands of Arabia, the plains of South America, or in the rich valley of the Connecticut, develops its finest form and perfection of leaf. During the last half-century the plant has been developed to a greater extent than during the three hundred years succeeding its discovery. Now its cultivation has been reduced to almost an exact science, and the quality of the leaf is in a great measure within the control of the growers of the plant.

Formerly it was supposed that the varieties that grew in the tropics could not be successfully cultivated in the temperate regions, but recent and repeated experiments have demonstrated the fact that the tobacco of Cuba can be grown with success in the Connecticut valley.

While the tobacco of the tropics is the finest in flavor, the more temperate regions produce the finest and best colored leaf. The tobacco of the tropics, as to the uses to which it is put, is limited, while the tobacco of the more temperate regions can be used for all the purposes for which the plant is designed.

The cultivation of the plant varies with the variety, the soil, and the use to be made of the leaf. Thus a tobacco designed for cutting purposes is cultivated somewhat differently from that designed for the manufacture of snuff or cigars. In the one case the plant is allowed to remain growing longer in the field, while in the other the work of topping the plants is performed at an earlier stage of their growth.

Primarily but little attention was paid to the color and texture of the leaf, the princ.i.p.al object being the production of a leaf of large size, rather than one of good color, and of a silky texture. Now, however, these are most important considerations, and give value to the tobacco in proportion to the perfection of these qualities.

The soil, too, is carefully chosen and fitted in the most thorough manner, while the fertilizers used are selected with reference to the color of leaf desired. When first cultivated in the United States it was thought that tobacco designed for various uses could not be grown in the same state or section; now, however, tobacco for cigars and for cutting are grown nearly side by side. But in the fineness of the leaf, tobacco culture has made its greatest stride. By a careful selection of soil, and by the judicious application of proper fertilizers, the leaf tobaccos of Connecticut, Cuba, and Virginia, resemble in texture the finest satins and silks. This result has been reached, not by the sacrifice of the strength of the leaf, but by the most careful culture and improved methods of curing.

The first labor to be performed in connection with the growth of a crop of tobacco, is the selection of a site for, and the making of, the "plant bed" or "plant patch." These beds for the early growth of the plants until large enough to transplant, are made in various ways and at different times, according to the method of tilling adopted and the climate. In California the tobacco bed is made in January, in the Southern States, Syria, Turkey, and Holland, in March. In New England in April. In Mexico and Java in June, and in Persia in December. In the Connecticut valley the manner of making the

PLANT BED,

as given by a Ma.s.sachusetts tobacco-grower, is as follows:--

"No rigid rules can be given for any process in tobacco culture, which depends much upon weather and season, but certain advantages may be obtained by skillful adaptation of general principles to circ.u.mstances. This is especially true of raising tobacco plants, which occupy an extremely slight depth of ground for weeks after sowing, making it necessary to prepare the whole soil with reference to the state of this thin surface. Any slight mistake of treatment may make in the end a difference of several days; consequently each item is of importance. While every tobacco-raiser wants early plants, and appreciates the value of a good location for growing them, many naturally sheltered spots of ground, protected from northerly winds by buildings, trees, or hills, remain unappreciated. Tight board fences are no protection worth mentioning.

"A heavily manured crop of tobacco would fit such places for tobacco beds, and leave them freer from weeds than any other cultivation; and a subsequent use of some commercial fertilizer would avoid the introduction of weed seed. With these precautions, and a careful destruction of all neighboring weeds, a tolerably clean bed may be expected. To prepare the ground, plow or loosen deeply with a large cultivator; harrow in two-thirds of the fertilizer to be used; rake the bed perfectly level, then rake in the other third; roll once, and another slight raking will fit the bed for sowing, after which it should be rolled down hard. If the soil is handled in drying weather, it should be done quickly, because damp ground, if prepared and rolled down before drying, will 'set' like mortar, and remain damp on the surface. Moisture and darkness are essential to the germination of the seed, and these conditions can be secured only by making the surface compact while damp. The disintegration of the deeper lumps, and the decomposition of fertilizers, will cause the surface to grow gradually softer. The effect of plowing is to break the ground into lumps, which lie upon each other, giving free admission to the air between them. Harrowing makes finer the lumps near the surface, and mixes the fertilizer deeper than a rake can be used. The first raking is to pulverize and level, so that rains will neither collect in ponds, nor run off, but penetrate the soil evenly. The second raking is to mix the fertilizer equally through the soil, to the depth of an inch or less, and reduce the lumps to the size of peas, which is as fine as a medium loam can be made without danger of a tough crust. Too much working destroys the healthy grain of the soil, and reduces it to a paste, which the roots of the tobacco plants can penetrate but slowly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Making the plant bed in Connecticut.]

"The bed should not be watered before nor after the plants come up. The ground will be cold enough without any extra evaporation, and if the place is suitable for tobacco plants, and rightly fitted, the surface will be damp in the morning, even in very dry weather. If the plants need stimulating, sow on them a coat of Peruvian guano or super-phosphate at the commencement of a rain, regulating the quant.i.ty used by the amount of the water likely to fall.

Superphosphate makes dark-colored, thick-leaved, stocky plants. Fish guano has about the same effect, but gives a lighter color and thinner leaf. Peruvian guano is more stimulating than either, and makes a light-colored, thin leaf. Great caution is necessary in the use of these powerful medicines to avoid an over-dose. A quant.i.ty that would be safe in a heavy rain, would in a light rain kill many or nearly all the plants.

"Old seed will sprout sooner than new. The seed should be measured while dry, and the same spoon used every year, so the effect of a given amount may be noted and the quant.i.ty regulated by experience. Level the seed in the spoon with a knife-blade, like measuring grain in a half-bushel. After sprouting again, allowing for the seed, increase in bulk for each rod separately. The amount of seed needed to the square rod varies with different seasons, soils, and seeds, but can be loosely a tablespoonful. There are many breeds of tablespoons. Too thick sowing will nearly spoil a bed by causing it to produce weak, yellow, spindling plants, while thin sowing will give good square ones. A bed should appear about half stocked till the plants are nearly ready to set, when they will suddenly spread and seem to multiply.

"Some growers sprout and some prefer dry seed. In favorable circ.u.mstances sprouting will give a gain of four to six days, but in many cases dry seed will be fully as early. A long sprout is liable to be broken off in sowing, or killed by cold, after it is in the ground. A sprout just showing will endure several nights' freezing if there is some warm sun in the day-time. One way to sprout is to spread the seed thinly on cotton cloth, and roll it up inside of woolen cloth, keep it in a warm place, and dip in warm water every day. In about four days the white spots will show. Sprouted no more than this, it will stand unfavorable weather as well as dry seed. A pint of meal and a pint of plaster to each rod, is a good mixture to sow in. Pouring from one dish to another many times will mix the plaster, meal, and seed perfectly if dry. If sprouted, it should be rubbed through the hands a few times with the mixture, to dry it and prevent any bunches of plants coming from seed stuck together. The plaster will show on the ground whether the sowing is being done evenly.

"Weeding should of course be done early and thoroughly.

Weeds are stronger than the plants, and a little neglect will check them, making practically, perhaps, a difference of several days. A good way to prepare for weeding and taking up plants, is to make the bed about fifteen feet wide, and place round, straight poles across it about eleven feet apart. The poles should be three inches in diameter at the smallest end. They cost nothing and save moving blocks around with the weeding planks."

If the plants are tardy of growth, or the season is backward, wooden frames covered with cloth soaked in linseed oil may be placed over the beds, which is far better than to cover with pine boughs or gla.s.s even. The cloth soaked in oil draws the rays of the sun and keeps the earth dry and warm, causing a rapid growth of the plants, which at this stage need forcing in order to be forward enough for early transplanting. A Virginia planter gives the following description of making the

PLANT PATCH.

"Cut wood in September or October, so that it may season, to burn patches (beds) in winter or spring. For ten acres, or fifty thousand hills, burn and sow three patches each of seventy-five square yards. Say one (if the land be in good condition) the latter part of December, and if it be not in condition then, burn one hundred and fifty square yards the first good weather in January or February, and the other the first of March. Select a place on some small constant running stream, not liable to overflow, with a moist, sandy soil; cut down all trees close to the ground; get off all shrubbery, leaves, etc. The patch will then be ready for wooding. Commence by laying on skids ten or twelve feet long, four in diameter, three and a half feet apart; cover thickly with brush, then put on wood regular all over, and thick enough to burn dry an inch in depth. Commence your fires on the side, and continue to move after it has burnt hard enough. After it has burned, sweep off all coals, but not the ashes: then it will be ready for hoeing up, which can be done with good grub hoes; hoe deep, but do not turn over the soil; get off all large and small roots; chop over with hill hoes, and rake until the earth is thoroughly pulverized; then put on twenty-five bushels of good, fine, stable manure, without weed and gra.s.s seed, and twenty-five pounds of Peruvian guano, which should be put on regularly, hoed and raked in.

"For sowing, lay off beds four feet wide, so that the water from rains may run or drain off. For every bed four feet wide and twelve yards long, sow one chalk pipe bowl full of seed, after being mixed with ashes; tread with the feet or pat it over with weeding hoes, that it may be close and smooth; cover it with dog-wood, maple, or any fine brush, to the depth of twenty or twenty-four inches, to protect the young plants from cold or a drouth. After the plants have commenced coming up, re-sow the patches with half the quant.i.ty of seed first sown, which will not interfere with the plants first up, but make good re-planting plants. When the plants, or some of them, have grown to the size of a Spanish mill dollar, take off the brush, pick off all sticks, weeds, and gra.s.s, and keep them well picked until you have finished setting out.

"Should the plants not grow fast enough to suit, manure with Peruvian guano; have it fine, and sow over in the middle of the day when they are dry, or if it be raining briskly, it may then be sown over. Should the patches be suffering for rain, put five pounds of Peruvian guano in twenty gallons of water, and sprinkle it over with a watering-pot. To destroy the flea, bug, or fly, put dry leaves around the patch, and set fire to them at night, which will attract and destroy them if they are disturbed with a broom or leafy brush."

The old Virginia planters selected and made the plant patch as follows:--

"The quality of earth, and places which are universally chosen for this purpose, are newly cleared lands of the best possible light black soil, situated as near to a small stream of water as they can be conveniently found, due attention being paid to the dryness of the place.

"The beds, or patches, as they are called, differ in size, from the bigness of a small salad bed to a quarter of an acre, according to the magnitude of the crop proposed; and they are prepared for receiving the seed in March and the early part of April, as the season suits, first by burning upon them large heaps of brush wood, the stalks of the maize or Indian corn, straw, or other rubbish; and afterwards, by digging and raking them in the same manner of preparing ground for lettuce seed; which is generally sown mixed with the tobacco seed (the same process being suitable to both plants); and which answers the double purpose of feeding the laborer, and of protecting the young tobacco plant from the fly; for which intent a border of mustard seed round the plant patch is found to be an effectual remedy, as the fly prefers mustard, especially white mustard, to any other young plant; and will continue to feed upon that until the tobacco plant waxes strong, and becomes mature enough for transplantation."

A Tennessee planter gives the following description of making the plant bed as practised in his State. In some respects, especially in preventing the growth of weeds, it is the best process of making the "plant patch" that we have ever seen described. He says:--

"To make a good plant bed it requires good management and pretty hard work. It will hardly be done well without the presence of the farmer to attend to it. The time to make a bed is from the 15th of October to the first of April. The best beds are made in the Fall, for the reason that the ground is then very dry and therefore more easily burned, and besides there is more time for the ashes to rot before the hot weather. A bed turned in the Fall will hold moisture better than burned later. It takes less wood to burn well.

The plants are more vigorous and tougher. The soil should be rich and light and never tilled before. The location should be as much exposed to the sun as possible. It is best for a bed to be surrounded by timber. The bugs are not so apt to find it. Low rich valleys will generally do better than ridges, though any good rich new ground will make good plants if well burned and prepared. The ground should be raked very clean of leaves before packing on the brush and wood. The fire must have a fair chance at the ground. The brush should be packed on straight and close, at least enough wood mixed with it to make it lie close. If the brush is green, endeavor to mix what dry stuff there is thorough, so the fire will burn through without trouble. It is very important that the fire should be as hot as possible while it is burning. The bed should not be rained upon after it is set before it is burned, as it will be doubtful whether the ground beneath the brush will get dry well.

"The ground should always be as dry as possible when it is burned. The bed should be set on fire in several places at once so as to have a very great heat on it at once. If the ground is well burned it will be a little crusty and whitish, and will pulverize beautifully. As soon as the ground is cool enough it may be loosened up and pulverized.

This should be done well, and may be done with a good sharp harrow and then followed with hoes and grubbing hoes. Aim to keep the ashes and rich soil on the surface, and for this reason a bed is sometimes damaged by a too deep working.

Rake carefully, getting off all the roots and trash. The bed should be drained by a little ditch around it on the upper side. If it is very early in the Fall, the seed should not be sown until the danger of very warm days has pa.s.sed. After the last of November the sowing should be as soon as the bed is prepared. A little less than a heaping tablespoonful to ten steps square is about the quant.i.ty of seed. Cover the seed very lightly with the rake or tramping the ground with the feet. Cover the bed with a good layer of straight brush, not enough to keep the light rains from the bed, but at the same time enough to keep the ground in a moist condition even in hot weather. Make a low close brush fence around the bed to keep the leaves from being blown upon it. Re-sow whenever the plants are well up, so as to have two chances.

Take off the brush cover when the plants are big enough to shade the ground themselves. If the plants are rather thin on the bed, do not uncover until you go there to draw the plants. If there is any danger of a scarcity of plants, always put the trash back after drawing."

In Cuba the

"SEMILLEROS"

or planting beds as a rule, lie higher than the rest of the farm. On the large _vegas_ or tobacco plantations, numbers of planting beds are made under the supervision of the mayoral. Siecke gives the following account of making the beds or _semilleros_:

"On the island of Cuba any field selected for the cultivation of tobacco is divided into long beds (_Canteras_) twenty-five to twenty-eight feet long, and nineteen to twenty inches wide. The soil is then manured with a mixture of two parts of well rotten dung and one part of either sand or fine sandy earth. During the months of August, September, and even October, the beds are watered, and the seeds mingled with the nine-fold quant.i.ty of fine sand, are sown broad cast or through a fine sieve, and immediately after covered with a mixture of dung and triturated or molaxated earth, in such a manner that this mixture forms a covering layer of about 1-32 inches.

"The utmost care is taken to protect the seeds against the stifling heat of sunrays as well as heavy showers. To this end forked sticks about three inches high, are placed around the tobacco beds, opposite one another, and into these forks thin twigs are laid, which are covered with palm-leaves in such a way as to form a slight roof."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Covering plant bed.]

In Syria the tobacco seed is sown in ground free from stones, well manured with goats dung, and strewn over with p.r.i.c.kly bushes to protect the young plants from birds. The plants are watered daily till they reach the height of eight or ten inches, when they are transplanted. In Persia where the celebrated s.h.i.+raz tobacco is cultivated, the seed is planted in a dark soil slightly manured; the ground is covered with light th.o.r.n.y bushes to keep it warm, and these are removed when the plants are a few inches high. The ground is regularly watered if required, and when the plants are six to eight inches high are transplanted. In Turkey "the tobacco seed is sown early in the spring, in small beds carefully prepared for the early growth of the young plants. In a few weeks the plants appear thick; then begins the occupation of the farmer's wife, and their numerous children, whose little fingers are engaged day by day in thinning the beds, care being taken to leave the most healthy looking plants. The husband is engaged either in carrying water from the nearest well by the aid of his mule, or in preparing the land for the reception of the plants. The beds are well watered before sunrise and after sundown."

"The Hungarian peasantry always make their tobacco beds against the south ends of their houses. These beds are enclosed by hurdles two feet high, at the bottom of which stones are laid, and on the outside of these, thorns are thickly placed, to exclude the moles. They fill this enclosure to the height of eighteen inches with fresh, coa.r.s.e manure, which they press closely by beating as they throw it on; covering with finely pulverized earth mixed with dung of the preceding year that had become soil. They do not regulate their time of sowing either by the moon, month, the season, but by the holy week of the pa.s.sing year; it is on Good Friday that all of their beds are sown, and although this day may vary nearly one month in different years, they are faithful to their thermometer--their piety not permitting them to know any other. To the mysterious influence of the day, without regard to the season, they ascribe their success and they generally succeed." Bickinson gives an account of the manner of making the plant bed in the East Indian Archipelago. He says: "Not far from us is a hut inhabited by two natives, who are engaged in cultivating tobacco. Their _ladangs_, or gardens, are merely places of an acre or less, where the thick forest has been partially destroyed by fire, and the seed is sown in the regular s.p.a.ces between the stumps."

After making the plant bed and tending through the weeding season, the next step to be taken is the