The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1880-03-04
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From the Seed to the Salesroom.
BY \ X. l.. RAGLAND, OF HYCO. VA.


chewing, pipe smoking. or cigars require
different soils and management to insure a
product that will command an adequate re-
turn Ipr the labor and means expended
thereon. 1t is therefore of the highest I'M
portance that the planter should Know what
grade his lands are capable of producing IN
the greatest perfection and the modes and
management to accomplish tie best results
from such choice.
A deep rich soil, OVERLAPPING a clay subsoil,
Is best suited for dark heoty shipping toL0c-
COS.
A ~gravelly or sandy soil, with a red or
brown sub5oil, is best adapted to the pro-
dnction OF street filters and stenamtng to-
odccOs.
Alluvials and rich flats produce the best
euarstOck.
And experience has proved that a gray
ANDY or sIaty top-soil, with a yellow porous
snbsoil, is best for yeUoU wrappers and
smokers. And these grades are IN SO great
demand, and command SO much more In
price, than any others, that we propose. IN
this short treatise, to devote to them most
sa,ace. For, In the production OF these, the
author has had most experience and success;
md while the production of brights require
more skill and careful management, they
seldom fail to make ample compensation for
all the attention bestowed upon them.
But unless the planter makes provision
BY building or arranging suitable barns,
crowded with fues, or prepares charcoal, he
need not expect to su cceed, and had better
sim at some other grade requiring less pre-
paration, cost and skill.
Log barns, ranging from sixteen to twenty
feet square, are the sizes mostly used.
These should be built about twenty feet
high in the body and covered with shingles
Or boards. Large logs may be used until
tho pen is built about seven feet high from
The ground. Then if the size is twenty feet,
{ay off for five rooms, four feet apart, and
place tier poles across to form the lower
tier. Raise two logs higher all around and
put on another course of tier poles directly
mer the first. Then, using smaller logs
{cabin size) place on three logs higher all
around, laying on tier poles as before, and
continue to elevate the body of the barn un-
III YOU have FIVE tiers. Then place two
more logs around and the plates, and the
have a barn with five rooms and five tiers.
Mark you. the lower tiers are not firing tiers,
but placed in the barn for the convenience
of hosting, and for storing cured tobacco
when necessary. By this arrangement, the
tiers are about three feet apart and vertical,
the body of the barn a cube-as high as it is
wide and deep-and the whole arrangement
cpnformahle to the process OF curing. The
roof is so constructed, conforming to the
plan of tiers below, as to contain three tiers
shove the joist, varying in length. Such a
barn will hold about $50 to 700 sticks OF
medium tobacco, six plants to the stick. 10
prepare it for curing brights, it must be
chinked and daubed close.
FIues of brick or stone, covered with sheet
iron and having return pipes OF same ma
terial, need not cost over $50 to each barn.
They are cheaper and better than charcoal,
and the tobacco cured Herewith Is cleaner
and brighter. For all purposes where it is
necessary to apply heat IN curing dny grade,
.be fine is best. and is destined to supercede
the omen wood fire with its Objectionable
smoke.
Believing that we can do the uninformed
no better service than in sketching a cheap
and efficient plan for the construction of
dues, we will attempt to give one that has
long been in use, and has proved to do well.
In the first place, cut out two or three
logs from the end of the barn, and construct
the walls of the fues II or Is inches dis
at EEEE in the diagram, and projecting
outside of the walls, at A A some fourteen
or fifteen inches. Build the walls eighteen
inches apart and eighteen or twenty inches
high at A A, decreasing in height as they
run back to fourteen inches at &C. Put in
sheet iron pipes ten or twelve inches in
diameter at G c, equidistant from the fues
and from each other, and carry them
through the body of the barn, out at D d,
with the ends at D D elevated three feet
higher than at G c.. The lues should be
arched or covered with fat stone for about
five feet from A A to B B, then cover the
fues from B B to G c with sheet iron. It
is best to use number sixteen nearest the
fire, as at 3 B, while thinner iron, number
eighteen or twenty, will answer for covering
the remainder.
For strength durability, efficiency and
econom-, this fue has no equal and it's ex-
tensive use through DIT the bright tobacco
region of Virginia and North Carolina
proves its value.
Let beginners remember that only by pa
tience and perseverance they can hope to
snoceed for without a good stock of these