The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1891-08-20

A&laE tobacco planters al
8 s.: s: :: :: :: =:
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NJ HVSH TO CURE MAHOGANY
Il NJ ER COLOR.
HA " After the tobacco
has yellowed sufficient.
ly on scaffolds or under flues, and
when the leaves have assumed a mot
tied piebald appearance, run the heat
to one hundred degrees and let it re-
main at that point for three or four
hours. Then raise the heat two and a
half degrees an hour until one hundred
and thirty is reached. Keep the heat
at that point until the leaf is cured,
and then move up gradually to one
hundred and sixty or one hundred and
seventy and thus cure stalk and stem.
If cured properly there will be much
of the leaf mahogany, while the re-
mainder will run from a bright dapple
to a cherry red.
"SHIPPING" TOBACCO.
Dark heavy shipping nothing
which does not possess size and sub
stance is fit for this grade may be
cured with flues better than in any
other way. Smoke from the open wood
fire is Objectionable, and with the fue
you get the heat, which is al. that is
wanted, without the smoke. Curing
with open wood fires belongs to the
past, and none but the old Bourbons
will continue the old practice, because
they know no better. Taste and fash
ion are against smoke, and nothing
else is needed to Danish the old and
recommend the new mode. If dark
color is desired, which is not so fash
ionable as formerly, it can be secured
as easily over f1ues as over wood flues.
But the world wants colory tobacco,
and this can be produced certainly
better with the flue than in any other
way. Besides, by the hue the leaf is
cured sweet and free from smoke or
SCOT.
A skilful curer can produce the
colors most in demand, and by the
fiue better, and with more certainty,
than in any other way. The main
object of the author is to induce plan
tiers, who have never used fues, to try
tl.-.-. e.. Ill o..-L~s.
CURING BRIGHT YELLOW TOBACCO.
There are two modes for curing yell
low tobacco-one with charcoal and
the other with fues. The first is the
primitive mode, but is fast giving place
to the latter, which is cheaper and
more efficient, and is being adopted
by most of our best planters. The chief
agent in either mode is heat-a dry,
curing heat-to expel the sap from the
leaves, stems and stalks of the plants,
and catch the color, yellow, next to
natures color, green, and fix it indel-
libby. This is the science of curing yellow
tobacco. There are seven prismatic
colors-that of green tobacco occupy
ing the centre of the prism. By the
process of nature, leaves in drying de-
scend in color from green, first to yell
low, then to orange, then to red, and
finally lose all color as they 60 to de-
cay. Now, quick, dry heat, SO reg
ulated as 10 dry out the leaf and catch
tine yellow and fix it, is the modus OPP
erandi of curing fancy bright tobacco.
h,,~
sticks of green tobacco, six medium
plants to each stick, holds along with
the tobacco four thousand five hundred
to five thousand pounds of water, which
must be expelled in from eighty five
to one hundred hours.
Charcoal produces an open, dry
heat we'll suited to the purpose but
its preparation is costly, its use tedious,
dirty and laborious, and deposits a
black dust on the leaf that is objec-
tionable. With fues constructed with
furnace and pipes, the wood is burned
as cut in the forest or old field, and
the whole process OF curing is less
costly and less laborious, and the to-
bacco cured Herewith free from dust,
and has sweeter favor. The fue
process possesses SO many advantages
over all other modes of curing tobacco,
is SO sale, if properly constructed, and
free from smoke, that when its merits
become better known it will come into
general use and supercede all old
modes.
The first step in curing is called the
''steaming or following process" Me-
dunn tobacco will require from TWEEN.
ty-four to thirty hours steaming al
about ninety degrees to yellow suffi
GENTLY; but tobacco with more or les.
sap, larger or smaller, will require a
longer or shorter time to yellow. Here
the judgment of the curer must be hi:
guide. inexperienced planters would
do we'll to procure the services of an
expert curer if they have tobacco suit.
able for fine yellow. The planter save:
in enhanced value Of his crop many
times the money paid to the curer and
besides, by close attention, he may
J learn in one season to cure well him.
self. Theory alone, however good
and directions, however minute, will
not do here, but it is practice tina,
must qualify one to cure we'll.
When it is remembered that no two
plants are exactly alike, no two barn.
precisely similar in every particular
and that the weather may chang.