Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1879-03-27

nor hoe should be used, as it ha:
been found best to sacrifice pound;
to color.
The plants, after being topped
should be kept clear of worms, or
better still, kill the tobacco fly with
cobalt in the flowers of the "James-
t0aoia aoccd,"* and the suckers should
be pulled off before they grow toe
long. Mind, do not be in a hurry
cut your tobacco before fully
ripe, and eneugh fully and uni
formly ripe to fill barn. Have
your barns close Cog ones are hest),
well daubed and dry. Cut the to
bacco Of uniform size, color and
quality, putting about seven mcdi-
uln plants to an ordinary four-and'
a-half feet stick. Let the plant 90
from the cutters hands over the
stick in the hands of holder, who
will serve two cutters. When the
stick is flied, it should go directly,
without touching the ground, OH a
wagon, to be carried, when loaded
(nOt tco heavily, to the barn. 1t
will take from seven hundred to
eight hundred sticks of tobacco to
fill barn twenty feet square, with
five rooms, and four firing tiers be-
low joists, placing the sticks about
ten inches apart, the proper distance
for O1p1iD;n tohaf.cO
There are two modes for curing
yellow tobacco, ore with charcoal,
and the other with 1nes. The first
is the primitive mode, and is grad
ually giving place TO the latter,
which is cheaper and more efficient,
an6 is being adopted by most Of
our planters. The chief agent in
either mode is heat-a dry, curing
heat-to expel the sap from the
leaves Of the plants, and to catch
the colcr, yelloao, next to Natures
color, green, and to tfc it indeiibly.
This is the science OF curing yellow
tobacco. There are seven prismat~
ic colors-that Of tobacco occupy
ing the middle of the prism. BY
the process of nature, leaves in dry
ing descend in color from green,
first to yellow, then orange, then
red, and finally lose all color as
they go to decay. Now a quick
dry heat, so regulated as to dry ont
the leaf and catch the yellow color,
and fix it, is best adapted to the
modus operandi of curing fancy
tobacco.
Charcoal produces an open dry
heat, well snitcd for the purpose,
but its preparation is costly, its use
tedious and laborious, and it dc
posits black dust on the leaf that
is Objectionable. With flues, whi;h
may be constructed Of stone or
brick, and covered with sheet iron,
Or patent ones with furnace and
pipes, the wood is burned as cut
from the forest, and the whole pro-
cess Of curing is less costly and less
and tobacco cured there
with free from dust, and possesses
sweeter favor. Flues are equally
we'll adapted ter curing mahogamy
and for facilitating and |
sun-cured filters. The |
Hue process possesses SO many ad-
vantages over all other modes of
curing tobacco, is SO safe and free
from smoke, that when its merits
become better known it will come
into general use, and supcrsede all
other modes.
The first step in curing is called |
tie sTEAMING or WELCOMING pro-
cess. Medium tobacco will require
from thirty TO thirty-slx hours
steaming, at about ninety degrees
Fahrenheit, to yellow sufficiently,
but tobacco, with more or less sap,
larger or smaller, may require
longer or shorter time to yellow
Here the Judgment OF the curer
must be his gnide. inexperienced
planters would do well to procure
the services OF ali experienced curer
if they have tobacco suitable for
coal-curing. The platter saves in
the enhanced value of his crop
many tiues the money paid to the
curer, and besides, by close obser-
vation, he may learn in one season
to cure well himself. Theory alone,
however good, and directions, how
ever minute, will not do here, but
it is practice that must qualify one
to cure well.
The next step in curing yellow
tobacco is called FIXING THE COLOR
When the tobacco is sufficiently
yellewed, at ninety degrees Fab
renheit, the best k.aves of uniform
yellow, aid the greencr ones of
light pea-green color, it is time to
Dissolve one ounce of the cobalt of the shops in
a pint and halt of water, and mix it with moass-
es or osher syrup, bottle 1t and drop II through
qu1d into the heart of the blossom 1t shouid be
done about SHUTDOWN, and the poisoned flowers
pulled OF next day. otherwise the plant be de-
stroyed 1t has been found that this SO treat
ed planted around the edge OF the tol5accs aot and
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