The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-23

1 equal to 210 for every man, woman and child in the country.
 In making cigarettes the tobacco is :, prepared by machinery and ground and
 favored to taste. It is fed from the
 machines onto streams of thin tissue
 paper, tho tobacco being rolled and
 pasted by the machines and cut by them
 into cigarettes. In fact almost every
 thing Is done by machinery, and the to-
 bacco Is hardly handled by man from
 the time 1t enters the factory until 1t 1 goes out in special cars for export all
 over the country. The machines work
 as though they had brains There is
 one which counts the cigarettes as 1t
 puts them into boxes of 20 so that they
 just fill package of certain shape. | The machine first lays two rows of seven cigarettes and then one row of | six. It never makes mistake These machines are almost human in their ma nipulations. They have steel hands and steel fingers, and they make boxes and bags Of tn or cloth, performing hun dreds of operations, which end in the l completed products of manufactured to- baccos of various kinds.
 | There is one firm at Durham, N G. which annually ships 35,oc0ooo pounds of granulated smoking tobacco and there Is factory here that makes 9O0,-
 
 The Durham factory puts It's tobacco in l little cotton sacks. and it is now turn Ing out 100000 such sacks every 24 hours. There Is a company in Rich mond that Is now making more than 100000 cigars every day. It has also an output of cigarettes that runs into the billions year.
 In coming to this tobacco belt of the south I expected to find some large DIant2ffnnG hn R, nk i, kL-L A or the tobacco crop comes from garden patches, and the farmers estimate the size or their crops, not by the acre, but by the hill. There are about 4o0O hills 10 the acre, and man who has a half-million hills is a nabob. If all the tobacco fields of the United States were put into one block, the field would be only about twice the size of Rhode dsas asland' It's area being little more than eoov square miles. If all the tobacco farmers were gathered together thev would number something like soo.0oo Tn most cases tobacco is but ona of , number Of crops raised on a farm If IS costly to raise and 1t requires almost constant labor from It's planting in early spring until along about August or Sen- lemoer, When 1t Is cured and ready for ii iaia,het. th ! met here an old planter. who IS the leading buyer for one of the large looacco companies, and asked him to tell me Tn simple language the story of to pacco from the seed to the mouth of the consumer. Said he:
 Iooacco Is king among plants. and requires royal treatment It has to have just the right Climate and inst the right soil, and it must he nursad ana cared for from the time 1t is planted untll It goes to the market I was talk ing not long ago with . man in the cItv WHO nad bought a farm. He became in terested in my story of tobacco and its pronts' and said: I would like to raise a @ .n.ue tooacco myself, and I wish you wouiu send me about bushel of seed Tor trial..' Why. man. I replied. a pusnel or tobacco seed would plant the whole state of North Carolina One ounce or the seed contains 340,0O0 grains, ana single plant will produce enough seed Tor 10 acres of hills. The seeds are each about as big as the point of a pin. They have to be mixed with ashes or dirt before planting m order not to SOW them too thick"
 How are they planted?" asked. with drill?
 'No, was the reply. They are sown oy hand in plant bed, much like cab page seed, and when the sprouts come up tney are transplanted in hills like cab pages or tomatoes. The making of the piane ped is not easy. The ground Is covered with wood and burned so that the earth is roasted and the insects seeos and other vegetable matter cooked out or It. It Is manured heavily and after the seed Is sown a cover of cheese cloth is stretched over it to keep in the heat and keep out the insects. A plant ped 70 yards square, will raise enough plants for 100000 hills
 After the plants are set out" the .obacco farmer continued. they have 10 pc cultivated They are hilled up like o n1 I, 1-. They grow to height of three or four rect and the leaves branch out on all sides. Where they branch suckers sprout out These have to be pulled off again and again, so that all the strength of the plant may go into the leaf; and TOT the same reason the top is cut off that the plant may not go to seed While the crop is growing every plant ! mas to be examined night and morning 10 Keep off the insects and worms. The worst pest is the horn or tobacco worm Inis comes from a moth which can lay thousand eggs in night The eggs hatch within few hours into worms the thickness of n horse hair. They be- gln to eat the tobacco plant and within week or so grow to pc an inch long and as big around as your little finger full grown worm will eat up leaf in night. and if not watched the pest will destroy the crop.'
 TOW IS the tobaccO harvested?'
 That begins when the leaves have turned yellow" said the planter. 'sThe farmer cuts down the stalks and hangs them on sticks which are stuck in the ground, or he may strip off the leaves and string them on wires. He then car rfes them to the tobacco barn to be cured or dried. The barn is closed house or hut with set of hues in it so that it can be heated and kept at just the right temperature until the tobacco is cured This requires days and nights of firing, and the toyacco must be watched during that time. At the end the moisture has been dried out. The leaves have turned yellow and they arr ready to be prepared for the market.