Los Angeles herald., 1892-04-14
FROM SEED PATCH TO SMOKE.

Cultivating and Curing Tobacco Means
Season of Constant work.
Few persons know the trouble in rails
from the time its seed is sown until the
smoker or chewer disposes of the leaf.
The seed is about the size of that of mus
tard and is raised in what is known as
plant patch. To prepare this a small
piece of wet land in piece of woods is
selected and cleared up and huge piles OF
wood and brush are placed thereon and
burned in the early spring. This is to
kill the grass roots and loosen up the
soil. The ground is then carefully raked
and prepared for the seed, which when
sowed is covered with brush to protect
the loose, dry soil and light seed from
blowing away and from birds, etc. A
seed patch of half an acre will plant
any ordinary planters crop for the year.
, The ground is next prepared in the
field for transplanting the plant, and
when the season arrives hills about three
feet apart are made, and the planter
then awaits a rain to set out his plants.
AS soon as he finishes the last of his
field the little plant has begun to suffer
from that pest of tobacco growers, the
worm. Then he begins to hoe and plow
and "worm" all at the same time, and
as fast as he gets through his field at
one end he goes back where he started
and has to go row by row and turn up
each leaf and pick off the worm, which
will in a nights time eat the leaves
sometimes of the entire plant.
Some of the old planters in Virginia
used raise large focks of turkeys, which
would be taken into the field as soon as
half to two-thirds grown and driven
through it to eat the worms. After a
few days they would as soon as put into
a field of tobacco seem to know just
what was wanted, and scatter out, TAX
ing row for row, and quietly walk under
large plant look up, and as carefully
take the worms off as trained hand
could. This worm usually hangs on the
under side of leaf.
The turkeys, after eating the small
worms, kill the large ones, dropping
them into the rows, and will do so for
an hour or so at a time, both morning
and evening. They are taken out of the
field when found tagging or tired and
kept penned in the shade until the cool
of the afternoon, when they are again
allowed to walk back through a differ
ent portion of the field, thus greatly as
sisting in one of the most tiresome and
tedious parts of raising this valuable
crop.
When the tobacco plant is ripe, that
fact is settled by pressing the leaves to-
gether. If they snap and the leaves split
ripens at one time and it has to be cut
in sections. AS fast as plant ripens
the field has to be gone over and the
ripe plants cut. From the very moment
a plant becomes ripe it begins to lose it's
weight.
When cut it is carried to barn and
fired couple of days to cure it. Then
it has to be taken down, packed in bulk
and stripped of it's large stalks, then
bundled and handled. The oftener
handled-with little grease used on
the hands as leaves are passed through
them-the better the color. From this
point it is packed in hogsheads and ship
ped to the commission merchant, who
sells to manufacturers, and sweated,
handled and moistened until made into
cigars, repacked into boxes and sold
through retailers. Work has never
ceased until the leaf is consumed by the
smoker or chewer. York Times.