The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1895-08-15
YELLOW TOBACCO.
THE PROCESS OF FLUECURING THE
GOLDEN LEAF.
SeasOnabie Hints for BEGINNERS and
Others-The Experience of a Practi-
cal Man and Recognized Author
ity-Method Most Practiced by Sue
cessfuI Planters General Rules for
Guidance, &C., &c.
Maj. Il. l.. Ragland. !
CUTTING AND HOUSING.

Maj. r. l.. Ragland.I
CUTTING AND HOUSING.
Do not be in hurry to begin cut
ting your tobacco until it is ripe, and
enough fully and uniformly ripe to fill
barn. A thin butcher or shoe knife
we'll sharpened and wrapped with a
SOFT cloth around the handle and ex-
tending an inch along the blade, will
DO the work efectually and be easy
to the hand. Try it. Put knives into
the hands of experienced cutters only,
men who know ripe tobacco, and will
select plants uniform in color and tex
ture, and will cut no other. Have
your sticks all ready in the field, and
placed in piles convenient-sticking a
stick vertically in the ground over
each pile that they may be more easily
found when wanted. Pine sticks. rived
three-fourths of an inch by one and
one fourth inch, and four and one
half-feet long, drawn smooth, are
best.
Start together two cutters and one
stick holder-the cutters carrying two
rows each and the stick holder walking
between them. The cutter takes hold
Of the plant with his left hand at the
top near where the knife enters the
stalk; with his right he splits the stalk
down the centre observing to guide
the knife SO as not to sever the leaves
to within three inches of the point he
intends to sever the stalk from the hill;
and as the knife decends his left hand
follows the slit or opening, and when
the plant is severed from the hill, by a
dexterous movement of the left hand
the plant is straddled across the stick
In the hands of the holder. When the
stick has received about six medium
plants, if intended for brights, it is
ready to 60 to the barn, either carried
by hand if near, or hauled on a wagon
if distant. If it is necessary to use
the wagon, prepare bed sixteen feet
long to hold three coops or piles, on
which place tobacco as cut and placing
twenty-five or thirty sticks of cut to-
bacco on each coop, drive to the barn
to be unloaded.
Tobacco suitable tor brights is best
handled in this way, as it is bruised
less than if handled by any other
mode. Try it, planters, and knozU for
yourselves. Very heavy tobacco will
break less if, after being cut by the
above mode, the sticks are placed
gently on the ground and the plants
allowed to wilt before being removed
to the barn. But tobacco of medium
size bruises less to handle it without
willing. Cutting and housing by this
mode you never have any sun-cured
tobacco. For brights, it has been
found best to commence curing at
once, as soon as the barn can be filled.
The first step in curing tobacco is
called the
STEAMING OR WELCOMING
process. Medium tobacco will require
from twentyfour to thirty hours steam
ing at about ninety degrees to yellow
sufficiently; but tobacco with more or
less sap, larger or smaller, will require
a longer or shorter time to yellow.
Here the judgment of curer must be
his guide. inexperienced planters
would do we'll to procure the services
Of an expert curer, ifthey have tobacco
suitable for fine yellow. The planter
saves in enchanced value of his crop
many times the money paid to the
curer, and besides, by close attention
he may learn in one season to cure
we'll himself. Theory alone, however
good, and directions, however minute
will not do here, but it is practice
that must qualify one to cure well.
When it is remembered that no two
plants are exactly alike, no two barns
precisely similar in every particular
and that the weather may change
every hour, is it reasonable that fixed
programme can be followed for every
curing with any reasonable hope of
success? The experienced know bet
ter. On work SO varied, only gener-
al directions can be given. The next
step is called
FIXING THE CcLOK.
When the tobacco is sufficiently yell
low, and the greener ones of a light
pea-green color, it is time to advance
the heat to one hundred degrees; OBJ
serving the leaves closely to detect
sweating, which will soon redden and
spoil the color, unless driven off. To
do this, open the door and let it stand
open, and if, after an hour or more,
the sweat has not disappeared, open a
space between the logs on opposite
sides of the barn to let in more air,
and permit to remain open until the
tobacco has dried off all appearance of
sweat. Right at this point more cur
ings are spoiled than at any other stage
of the process. 1t may be we'll to re-
member what is fact, that at least
five curings are spoiled by proceeding
too fast, to one failure from going
too sLozo. Now stick pin here.
But 20 go back to the barn where
we have just dried the leaf, and where
the thermometer indicates fall OF five
or ten degrees-hut this need not con-
celn the curer to put him out of hope,
for little cooling under the circum-
stances was necessaty-we close up
the opening and raise the heat to one
hundred degrees, But skillful curer
detects the first indications of sweat,
and prevents it by regulating the heat.