MODERN BARN SYSTEM

OF RAISING AND CURING TOBACCO.

FOURTH EDITION.

DPE rere
f2
7

CoPYRIGHT, 1895.
BY

W, H. SNOW,

SPECIAL NOTICE.

After three years of costly litigation the writer and patentee
holds all the patents and trade-marks which he formerly assigned
to the Modern Barn Company, and is now prepared to sell terri-
tory and tobacco sticks and baskets and material of all descrip-
tion used in the construction of barns.

During the last three years the Snow process of curing tobacco
has received marked attention from seven different States, whose
Experimental Stations have issued bulletins highly commending
the new method, and in some States have entered into an ex-
haustive analysis of the tobacco after curing, fully demonstrating
the superiority of the new plan, while W. F. Clark received the
highest award at the World’s Fair for tobacco grown in Louisiana
and cured in the Snow Barn for cigar and chewing tobacco.

My inventions are fully covered and protected by a number of
Letters Patent of the United States. The short cross wire with
its sharp fixed points settles forever the process of the leaf cure.
As the placing of the eve in the point of the needle held the per-
fect sewing machine and prevented any man from defrauding its
inventor, we intend that our device shall be held for the benefit
of the man who invented it. There have been, and we expect
there will be, many attempts to rob the inventor of the fruits of
his labor by evasion of his patented rights. None have succeeded
and none can succeed.

My patents cover, among other things, all tobacco sticks with
projecting prongs on each side, at right angles to the stick, by
any and all permanent means of attachment, no matter how
attached or fastened.

I will, at any cost, protect customers as well as myself against
any attempt to evade or infringe upon my rights by wsing, mak-
ing or selling any part of our patented inventions. I give this

early notice of my purpose that no one may have trouble. My
next move will be AcTION.

W. H. SNOW,
January, 1895. High Point, N. C.

» PREFACE -.O” FO URE ED Ei IN:

In offering to tobacco growers the fourth edition of my book,
my aim is not to add anything new, except so far as the rapid
strides of the “ Modern Barn” and “ Stick for Log Barn” wire-
curing process seem to call for it.

My former pamphlets and circulars have made tobacco growers
throughout the country so well acquainted with the merits of my
process that it seems superfluous to add anything. But the de-
mand for “ more light” has been so steady, and the calls for the
book so numerous, that the previous editions have been entirely
exhausted. My present object is to comply with the requests of
my friends in all parts of the tobacco region, and to answer, gen-
erally, the many questions which are constantly asked me. The
enormous growth of my correspondence has made this method a
necessity. I do not expect to be able to fully accomplish my pur-
pose, but will hereafter endeavor, as I have heretofore done, to
reply to all letters as promptly as possible. To my patrons and
others I still say: I will never grow weary of reading and
answering such letters as I am daily receiving. I take this oppor-
tunity of returning my thanks to the great multitude who have
so ably helped me to make tobacco growing and curing a source
of pleasure and profit to the farmer.

Address correspondence to

W. H. SNOW,

January, 1895. High Point, N. C.

INTRODUCTION.

The production of tobacco is one of the great industries of our
country. Its use is considered by a great portion of our people
a necessity. Tobacco forms an important expense account with
such people, and if it be claimed that it is only a luxury, it is the
only luxury they have, and one which is indulged in with the
least possible injury to the human system. ‘The laborer in the
gloomy mines, the honest tiller of the soil, the hard-worked rail-
roader, and the busy man of the counting-room, all go about
their tasks with lighter hearts under the mild and soothing influ-
ence of tobacco. From early in life until the shadows of twilight
begin to gather about him, man’s most constant companion is
the bewitching weed. Other friends may leave him, his bosom
companions pass away, and the vigor of youth give place to tot-
tering age, but tobacco remains to soothe his sadness and cheer
the gloom of his life.’ He is entitled to have it in its best pos-
sible form. In money value Tobacco stands number seven among
our field crops, and aggregates six hundred millions pounds
annually. It brings the planters nearly seventy-two millions dol-
lars each year and the manufacturers as much more, making one
hundred and forty-four millions in the industry.

There is great need for a scientific method of cultivating and
curing the crop, which is wholly wanting at the present time.
“ A great mystery doth hedge about” the industry. There are
a great many varieties of tobacco and almost as many methods of
cultivating and curing; all these methods cannot be right. The
great bulk of tobacco grown at the present time is cured as the
Indians cured the weed four hundred years ago. Demonstration
has conclusively proved that the red man’s method is based

neither upon science nor economy. It is wasteful in both virtue

6

and quantity from every point of view. The white man, with few
exceptions, has blindly followed his red brother’s tobacco trail, the
only deviation being that the white man builds a shed to shelter
his tobacco from the storms, while his red brother hung his
tobacco on the bushes or in the peak of his wigwam to dry it.
To shed the light of science, to group common sense methods, to
help the planter out of the uncertain blind way in which he is now
groping, is the object of this little book.

The 12th of October, 1892, completes the fourth century
since the discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus.
At the same time Columbus reports the natives of the new world
smoking the dried leaves of herbs which they called tobac, rolled
in the leaves of maize. There have been many speculations and
suppositions indulged in, that the Chinese or the Hindoos or the
Persians had a knowledge of tobacco before its discovery by
Columbus. But neither Moses, Herodotus, Pliny or Josephus,
or any historian previous to the discovery of America, gives us
any light on this subject. It is therefore safe to believe that
tobacco is a native of the Western Hemisphere, and from here it
has spread over the face of the whole earth, among every kindred,
tongue and condition of mankind. It numbers among its de-
votees the highest type of civilized and enlightened men, as well
as the lowest and most barbarous; every age, sex and condition
use the exhilarating weed. The edicts of crowned heads, the bulls
of popes, the assembled wisdom of legislative bodies, the stern
commands of parental authority are all alike powerless to even
check its use in the slightest degree. The dread of present or
future punishment has no terrors for the man, woman or child who
has once tasted the seductive weed. Much has been written about
the effect the constant use of tobacco has on the human race. So
far the testimony is neutral. There is no evidence going to show
that any race of men are less hardy or have abated in mental
calibre during the four hundred years of the constant use of the

weed. When we come down to individuals, there are as many

7

centenarians who have smoked and chewed tobacco as can be
found among the abstainers. Many die young who never use
tobacco, and many live to a ripe old age who have used the weed
from their youth up. That it is harmful to the human race col-
lectively there is no evidence; believing this to be so, we think it
highly commendable to give the weed to those who love it in its
best form and at the least cost. This shall be our aim, and if
our plans are followed, we will give a choice chew, a choice
smoke and a choice cigar at the price now paid for the cheap,
poor stuff, which forms the bulk of the goods now on the market,
which are exceedingly unwholesome and give no pleasure to the
man who uses them. The evil lies mainly in a bad system by
which the leaf is cured, while the faulty system has nothing better

than custom to recommend it.

CHAR PERI:

The successful growing of tobacco pays the planter a better
price for his labor and expenditure than any other field crop.
The uncertainty of the crop hedges it about with a mystery. The
difference between a crop handled right and a crop equally good
in the field and handled wrong is so great that many times it
appears to the uninitiated like gambling, when the facts are the
planter had all the cards in his hand to win his money, but failed
to do his part at the right time and lost. That the business of
tobacco growing can be reduced to a science and made as sure
as the production of any other crop grown in our fields the writer
feels certain. During the last five years tobacco raising has been
made plain and has been tested by thousands of planters in five
different States, and in no instance made known to us has there
been a single failure to obtain good results when the planter fol-
lowed our advice. This has been so uniformly the case in all
parts of the country and in all varieties of tobacco that we are
fortified in the belief that we have found the true science of grow-
ing and curing tobacco; and furthermore we have greatly re-
duced the cost and simplified the process of the manufacture of
plug, smoking tobacco and cigars. Let no man think a crop of
tobacco can be grown without care of the right kind bestowed
at the right time; vigilance always is the price paid for a good
crop of tobacco. “Intensive farming” is the kind of farming
that will give the best results always in the cultivation of tobacco.
It will pay better to grow fifteen hundred pounds on one acre
than to grow sixteen hundred on two acres,—the plowing, the
suckering, the topping, the worming, and the gathering consume
twice the time and only one-sixteenth more tobacco of an inferior
grade.

CEA? TH RAGE

“He that goeth forth bearing good seed shall return with joy
and bring his sheaves with him.” This was a subject well under-
stood in King David’s time, and is as true now as then. To
ignore this great underlying principle is to court failure in all
crops.

The first great requisite is good seed of the right variety. lia
planter thinks any kind of seed will do as well as any other he
has made a failure in the beginning of the crop. Blood tells on
the race course; the “two-thirteen” trotters are not bred from
scrubs, neither sire nor dam.

The dairyman seeks carefully for the pure-bred Jerseys and
Devons when he wants a large yield of milk and butter; the wool
grower seeks the pure-bred merinos for a heavy fleece of wool,
or southdowns for heavy quarters of mutton; the pork raiser has
long since learned that a bushel of corn returns him twice the
money fed to a Poland China or a Jersey Red swine of pure breed
than when fed to a bush hog with his ears set in the middle of his
back. Rust-proof oats, fulcaster wheat, Bullock seed corn, all
tell the planter that it will pay him to look well to the quality and
variety of his tobacco seed; the seed should be renewed every two
or three years.

The seed should be brought from the shorter to the longer
season; from the colder to the warmer. Never from the south
northward if it can be avoided. If the planter saves his own
seed from his own crop, let him save only the most vigorous
plants, and then only the earliest pinnacles and but few of them
on each stalk. A man is safe if he allows Col. R. L. Ragland to
send him his seed every year; his postoffice is Hyco, Va.; ‘“ the
world buys tobacco seed of him.” If you wish to grow tobacco
exclusively for plug or choice chewing tobacco, the Hester, the
Orinoco, or Gooch are varieties which have stood the test of
time, and are favorites with many planters. The writer’s experi-
ence has been satisfactory with the Hester; for cutters the Hyco
and the White Stem stand at the head for South Carolina, North
Carolina and Georgia. For cigars, the Zimmer Spanish, when

1O

cultivated and cured right, has few superiors in texture and none
in flavor; it will produce twelve hundred pounds per acre. The
Connecticut seed leaf stands at the head for wrapping cigars, and
will probably never be excelled for that purpose; when it is cured
in the Snow Barn the Sumatra wrapper takes a back seat. The
Cumstock Spanish is also highly spoken of as a fine grower, and
gives satisfaction to the cigar maker and smoker. The Havana
seed leaf is grown by Col. Ragland, and as he is a scientific seed
grower it is safe to get his seed. If the writer was growing
tobacco in States south of Virginia, we would depend on that
latitude for our seed, as it would travel in the right direction, from
the north to the south; its vitality and time of maturity would be
quickened by each remove towards the equator.

dat

CHAPTER Ui.
PLANT BEDS.

The tobacco plant differs in some respects from most others 1n
this: it grows faster, matures quicker, and produces richer leaves
when pulled up and transplanted, than if the seed were planted
like corn or beans and allowed to stand and grow where planted;
hence the universal custom of growing the plants in hot beds or
seed beds. The seed of the plant is the smallest known to the
husbandman; a single ounce contains eight hundred and seventy-
five thousand seeds; if every seed should produce a plant, one
ounce would furnish plants for one hundred and _ seventy-five
acres, counting five thousand plants per acre. The plant question
is a very important one with the planter, and his best effort is
put forth to obtain good plants for his first setting, and should be
as early as the season in his latitude will allow and escape late
frost. The plan most in use in Virginia is too seek the bank of
some small creek in some sheltered spot, and burn the ground
over with trash wood to the depth of two inches, and rake in the
ashes with manure; thoroughly pulverize the top of the soil, and
sow the seed and cover with canvass. This is done about the
first of January, when the plants will be set the first of May.
While this plan is a cheap one, and does well for Virginia and
North Carolina, there are a great many who wish to grow
tobacco that are not blessed with a creek running through their
farms, and the uncertainty of the beds getting the attention
needed at the proper time, while the plant bed is so far from
home, the writer is inclined to adopt a more sure way, which is
the hot-bed system, right at home, where the beds can be watched
and watered at will, and kept back or forced as the planter wills.
In this way the planter commands success; he can put forth his
hand and grasp it; and while his neighbor is scouring the country
buying plants from his neighbors, and setting his crop with every
known variety, which will not give him a uniform crop either in
the field or curing barn; hundreds fail here at the start. The
failure in a tobacco crop can as often be traced to the plant bed

I2

as to any one cause. Knowing by hard experience the import-
ance of these facts, we say to every planter who expects to follow
tobacco growing, construct at once a hot bed of the most ap-
proved pattern, in the most convenient and sheltered place about
your building. The sash should have about six inches fall in
three feet facing the south. For convenience the bed should
not be more than six feet wide and as long as needed; fill the
bed within six inches of the top with sandy loam, well mixed
with well rotted manure and guano; do this in the month of
November. Give the bed a thorough wetting, and put on the
sash, and grow your weeds and destroy them before you sow
your tobacco seed.

About the first of February, for Georgia and South Carolina,
sow your seed, get a straight edge two inches wide and make
a very slight mark on each side of the strip, and scatter the seed
along the edge of the strip on both sides, then turn the strip
over; don’t sow too thick, nor cover too deep; in fact do not
cover at all, but pat the top of the ground with a plank with
your weight on it. When the plants come up they can be
thinned out if too thick or re-sowed if too thin. If the plants
are likely to be too early, they can be kept back by taking off
the sash or by shading with plank if the sun is too strong in the
day time; if they are too slow they can be quickened by a liberal
sprinkling of warm water, leached through horse stable manure.
The point is to have the right kind of plants at the right time
at all hazards, and a plenty of them. This is the first important
step to take if you would make money growing tobacco. In
taking plants from the beds, which is called drawing “plants”
great care should be taken not to injure the stem by bruising;
do not press the bud which is in the middle of the plant; if the
bud is bruised in any way the plant is useless; the product if
any, must come from a sucker below the bud, and will be in-
ferior tobacco. The plants when four inches high are ready for
setting. In the preceding chapter we strove to impress upon the
planter the necessity of having good seed, and plenty of stocky
plants at the first setting; by stocky plants we mean plants that
have not been grown so thick in the beds as to give them a long
slender shank. In the following chapter we show the necessity
of having good soil.

i)

CHABTER Ty:
GOOD SOIL NECESSARY.

To grow less than one thousand pounds of tobacco on a single
acre is not good farming, and twelve hundred pounds should be
the rule in Georgia and South Carolina. It is thought necessary
in Virginia and North Carolina to have virgin soil to grow a
good crop of tobacco. This plan has been practised until these
states have been largely denuded of their forests, and their hill
sides seamed with gullies, and strange to say their planters are
not rich. Cutting down a crop of timber and burning it in log
heaps to obtain a crop of tobacco is paying dear for a whistle;
too much sugar for a shilling.

Good rich tobacco can be grown on old land; it is being done
in South Carolina every season, and it can be done elsewhere.
There is a reason why new soil is better than old land. The
only one I can give is the top soil is full of vegetable mold;
this element is lacking in old land. We have got back to first
principles now; the soil is lacking vegetable matter, nothing left
but silica of the primeval rock, which in itself is unable to
sustain plant life, although pulverized by the forces of nature if
unmixed with vegetable matter, its fertility is wholly wanting.
This want is starving one half of the farmers in the world; with-
out this, no man need try to grow good tobacco. In this vege-
table mold lies the chemistry of all plant food; the humus, the
very life of the tobacco plant. It is useless to coax Mother
Earth with nostrums; don’t think to feed the hungry soil by
dusting it with guano applied with a spoon. It is ‘just over
the hill to the poorhouse” with such farmers, whether they grow
tobacco, cotton or corn. This fact being established beyond any
controversy, and we have set out to grow a good crop of to-
bacco, not less than one thousand pounds per acre.

If vegetable matter is lacking in the soil which the planter
finds otherwise suitable let him sow cow peas and turn them
under; work with it two years in this way; get three crops of peas
into the soil by that time, with three hundred pounds of guano

14

to the acre; then try a crop of tobacco, and if you will plow in
your tobacco stalks and suckers before the heavy frosts kill them
you can continue to grow heavy tobacco year after year on the
same ground. By returning the old stalks to Mother Earth
much of the elements required for the new stalks are found in the
old in a concentrated form; the decomposition of the woody ele-
ments go to form the humus needed, and with a quantity of
woods mold added each year tobacco equal to new land tobacco
can be grown year after year without any deterioration; or
if the planter has two fields a crop of cow peas every other year,
and a crop of tobacco every other year, with the tobacco stalks
plowed in, will keep the crop equal to new land tobacco; and if
fertilized with guano twelve hundred pounds of good tobacco
should be the yield per acre.

This method of obtaining vegetable mold in the soil is less
expensive than cutting the timber, and clearing new land, and
for common plug tobacco the product is all that is desired. Let
the planter bear in mind that vegetable mold is an indispensable
requisite to the perfection of the tobacco plant, and without it
failure is the rule.

Fortunately for the average farmer, it is the cheapest fertilizer
he can obtain; having selected a field with a sandy top soil with
a clay base from four to six inches beneath. If the subsoil be
yellow all the better as this color is supposed to impart its
peculiar properties to the tobacco grown upon it. In our judg-
ment, however, if this color has the ‘right grit, it is extremely
friable when disturbed by the subsoil plow, and absorbs and
holds the rain a few inches below the surface, where it is avail-
able in dry time. The sandy soil lets the rain fall through and
the clay arrests its passage, and holds it for future use; this kind
of soil has given the best results in all parts where tobacco has
been grown. Land of this description should be turned over with
a turning plow about the first of January, again in the middle of
February. At the second plowing the subsoil plow should be
used about eight inches deep in the furrow, immediately behind
the turning plow. Do not turn up any of the subsoil. This
winter plowing destroys the pupa of the black cricket which pro-
duce the cut worm, a great pest when the plants are young.
The chrysalis of the bud worm will be disturbed at the same time,
and left where the frost will put an end to them; besides the

15

winter plowing is as good as a coat of manure, as it gives the
frost a chance to thoroughly pulverize the lumps in the soil. In
the winter time when little else can be done the compost heap
must be made. If we are to grow a crop of ten acres we want
a big heap. We want all the stable manure we can get. We
will bed our stock with litter of leaves and loam so as to lose
none of the sig or liquid manure. We will get all the nitre we
can into our compost heap. We will haul woods, mold or top
soil from our timber land and use cotton seed if we have it; we
will put all kinds of manure, but wood ashes. We will keep
them out of our compost and apply them broadcast. After we
think we have enough compost we will get a few more loads for
fear we may be short, as we have started to get twelve hundred
pounds per acre, we cannot afford to fail. A few days before we
are ready to set our plants, we will lay off our rows four feet
apart with a turning plow, and put out our compost by scatter-
ing it liberally in the furrows, and cover the same by throwing
the soil back. We will run our rows when practicable, north and
south; this will give every plant in the field equal chance to the
sun, both morning and evening; the rows should be four feet
apart to give ample room for the gathering of the leaves with
baskets, and to get the sun to the roots of the plants, also to
run the cultivator after the plants are well grown and not bruise
the leaves, as they are very susceptible to injury while in the
green state. We shall crowd the plants in the row to about twu
feet as we must get twelve hundred pounds per acre, and we
must have at least five thousand plants. We want four ounces
from each plant. The leaves must be normal and shapely as
only such are the delight of the buyer. To get such, both rich
and abundant, we give them plenty of room between the rows,
and crowd them a little in the rows. When we are ready to set
our plants, we run a bull tongue through our ridge of compost
and scatter commercial fertilizer about three or four hundred
pounds to acre along the ridge, and mix with the soil by running
the bull tongue two or three times through each ridge. When
done the plants can be set.

16

CHAPTER “WV.
SETTING OUT THE CROP.

Having found the right soil amply filled with vegetable mold;
having plenty of good stocky plants about four inches high, well
seasoned to the open air by leaving the top of the bed open for
a few days and nights, and no fear of late frost, we will proceed
to set out our crop. This should be done all at one time in the
same field if possible, as the setting of crop at different times
militates greatly against the curer, as there will be a correspond-
ing difference in the time of ripening of the leaves. This should
be avoided if possible on at least ten acres which will be the
capacity of one Snow barn. The acreage designed to be cured
in one barn should be all of one variety of tobacco and all set
at one time and cultivated the same. This is important as will
soon be found by the curer when he puts the heat on his tobacco.
When ready to set we run a bull tongue back and forth in the
ridges two or three times to mix the guano with the soil. This
guano is to start the young plant, giving it courage, causing it
to make large calculations in the first start. Not less than
twenty leaves are demanded of each plant. They will not cal-
culate so many on a low diet when voung. We are expecting
twelve hundred pounds of good tobacco from each acre, and
have a good show for more. If we set our plants by hand we
must wait for rain or we must water each plant by hand. A
man goes ahead with a basket filled with plants and drops one
on the ridge every two feet or twenty inches apart. A good
hand behind him picks up the plant sticks his peg in the ground,
and makes a hole about two inches deep; sets his plant in the
hole, resets his peg and pushes the dirt against the roots of the
plant, and goes on to the next. Care should be taken not to
cover the bud of the plant with soil, not press the dirt too hard
at the top around the neck of the plant, as any bruising or
strangling is ruin. Care should be taken to keep the rows
straight, and the bud of the plant near the surface of the ground.
This is called hand setting, and it is not easy work and requires

17

skillful, active men. Some men can set three acres in a day.
li set with a Bemis transplanter the process is quite another
thing; the plants are as well or better set in dry weather as in
wet. The machine is hauled by two horses, carries the driver,
a cask of water, and two boys, each with a basket of plants hung
before him. The plants are set and watered, one row at a time.
Five acres can be set in ten or twelve hours, and the work
better done than is possible by hand, even with the most skillful
hands. One machine costing about one hundred dollars will set
the crop of a dozen planters, and in the quality of the work alone
will pay its cost every year if fully employed. It will pay the
planter to buy one as the setting of the crop right, and at the
right time, is one of the necessary steps to insure success. With
this machine the farmer chooses his own time, whereas the hand
setting 1s often faulty. If the time for setting happens to be dry
the planter is either compelled to wait for rain or water by hand,
which is very tedious, and if set in very wet weather the ground is
apt to form a crust around the neck of the plant, and it will not
grow until the soil is loosened with the hoe.

18

GHAPTER GVA.
WORMING AND CULTIVATING THE CROP.

The plants now being set they must be constantly cared for, as
they have many enemies. If provision is not made for their
protection the work of the planter will come to nothing and his
labor lost. The most destructive of these enemies is known as
the horn worm, which if left to himself, will utterly destroy the
crop, leaving only the bare stalks and stems standing in the
field. Some seasons they are worse than others, but it 1s never
safe to neglect full preparations for their destruction which 1s
easily done if taken in time, but very difficult and expensive if
neglected; but must be done at any cost. The horn worm is
hatched from eggs deposited by the Hawk moth on the top
side of the leaves as he flits from plant to plant during the night,
never in the day time. Like the owl he seeks dark and shady
places during the day, and at the setting of the sun, he starts
out in quest of his supper, which he is very anxious to get before
he goes to work; like Artemus Ward who said, “If I have
much wood to chop before breakfast, I always eat my breakfast
first.” The eggs then deposited on a leaf of tobacco will hatch
and eat a hole through the leaf in about fifteen hours, and
in three or four days will destroy a-whole leaf and go on to the
next one. It is estimated that a single fly will lay one hundred
eggs in one night, and as many as five hundred eggs have been
counted in the egg pouch of a single moth after being killed.
Their favorite food is the honey found in the blossom of the
Jamestown or Jimpson weed. They can be seen any moon-
light night flying about these blossoms; to supply quantities
of them and poison them is the most effectual, and by far the
cheapest way to worm your tobacco. If the worms get on your
tobacco there is no other way to get them off, but to gc over
your crop and examine every plant and pick them off by hand.
Tf the moths are killed before they lay their eggs there will be
no worms on your tobacco. Early in the season see to it that
there are various thrifty clumps of Jimpson weed growing about
vour fields ready at the first appearance of the moth. They come

1)

about the last of May to the middle of June in Virginia; the
second crop in August. If the first crop is killed there will be
but few of the second. When about fifteen days old the worms
go into the ground where they remain in the pupa state or chry-
salis form, from which they emerge full-fledged moths, ripe
for mischief. It takes about two weeks for them to mature their
eggs, after they are seen flying about. They are like pullets not
ready to lay; if properly attended to at this golden time they
never will lay. Let the planter get a three ounce vial; put in
one-half ounce of cobalt, same of sugar; fill up with warm water,
shake well, and let it stand during the day; cut a small crease in
the cork. Just before sunset go about the Jimpson clumps and
drop two or three small drops of the liquid in each blossom.
The fly will suck the poison, and instead of laying eggs on the
tobacco they will lay on the flat of their back on the ground
dead. During the tobacco season of eighty-six we picked up
enough dead flies to fill a hundred pound nail keg full. “An
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This plan of
worming tobacco is the cheapest possible way. It is the only
way to prevent the leaves being eaten full of holes if the Hawk
moths are numerous. If a wrapper leaf has holes in it it is
classed as filler, and the price is reduced one hundred per cent.
in consequence. If the planter expects to succeed he must suc-
cessfully manage his crop to the end.

20

CHAPTER VT,
CULTIVATION CONTINUED.

To get good land, good plants, and good growth will not
suffice. If he neglects to keep the worms from his crop his
work goes for naught. It is the neglect of attention at the right
time to all the details of the cultivation of the crop that makes
the art of tobacco raising appear so much like a chance in a
lottery, and success so uncertain. These points cannot be too
strongly impressed upon all men who embark in tobacco growing.

It is now supposed that we have set our- tobacco plants and
Jimpson weeds. Our land is filled with vegetable mold, ani
has been plowed in winter to destroy the cut worms and bud
worms, which come from the larva of the black cricket. We
have not failed to subsoil our land that water from the frequent
showers may settle into the ground away from the roots of the
young plants in the early spring, the best method to prevent
frenching; also to store the water which will come back to the
plants in the form of steam when the ground gets hot in midsum-
mer. We will now proceed to cultivate our crop and bear in
mind that we are to harvest twelve hundred pounds of good
tobacco from each acre planted. If our land lies flat, after we
have set the plants we will take a one-horse turning plow and
turn a furrow from the plants on each side, the furrows to be run
about eight inches from the plants, leaving a ridge about sixteen
or eighteen inches wide, with the plants in the middle of the ridge.
The object of this is to drain the water from the roots of the
plants when young, as often in the heavy May rains the condi-
tions are such that the plants cannot grow and the crop is re-
tarded. The drain formed by the process obviates the danger.
A few days after the plants are set the whole crop should be
looked after. A careful inspection of the whole field should be
made, and every dead or sickly plant should be at once replaced
by a good one, and set in such a way that there will be no mis-
take about its growing. Remember if there are five hundred
rows in the field, and five plants are missing in each row the

21
ageregate loss is equal to one-half acre. At four ounces to the
plant there will be a loss of eight hundred pounds of tobacco.
At ten cents per pound this will amount to eighty dollars. At
twenty cents, to one hundred and sixty dollars. This will be a
clear loss as the land, the manure, the time in cultivation is the
same. It takes a plow the same time to pass a given space
whether the space is vacant or has a thrifty plant standing in it.
If we look for the twelve hundred pounds we must be sure that
the necessary plants are set in the field to grow the tobacco.
The plants will require straightening, and the earth touched up
about some of them a little, the planter must become acquainted
with his crop, and see that it is starting off right. When the
leaves have grown one half the size of his hand, the ridge in the
middle between the rows should be thrown back into the furrow
from which they were turned. This will be in about two weeks
from the time of setting; if the weather is seasonable, the whole
crop should be carefully gone over with the hoe; the weeds all
cleaned out. The next time any cultivation is done it should be
with the iron age cultivator. The surface of the ground should
be level and stirred not more than three inches in depth. The
tobacco is now about one foot high, the roots of the plants have
started out on their journey in seach of food. They are now
making their calculations as to the number of leaves they will
set out to grow. The plants have been very much encouraged
with three hundred pounds of fertilizer given as a starter. When
they run up against the vegetable mold they will take new cour-
age and decide at once on twenty-two leaves, all good sized and
rich in oil and well favored. This will depend somewhat on the
season. If dry hot weather is long continued the plant cannot
assimilate 211 the food given it, and a less number of leaves will
be the result.

22

CHAE EER Vall,
TOPPING AND SUCKERING.

Just here comes the rub, here is where many planters stumble.
The crop may be for some reason a little backward when the
time comes for topping. Its growth may be slow. The season
‘has been backward, either too wet and cold or too hot and dry.
The roots may have been standing in wet ground causing the
plant to run up spindling. If the topping is done at this time
it is apt to be topped too low, and when the later rains come
the plant has been robbed of all possible chance to make a
heavy crop of tobacco. The same planter will prime too high
and top too low all at the same time, and for the same reason.
The plants have made calculations to grow twenty-two leaves.
They have the roots in the ground sufficient to pump the neces-
sary sap to supply that number. The planter comes along, and
compels the plant to work only on twelve leaves. The result
is when the season of rain comes, the whole crop of roots being
left they pump more sap into the few leaves than they can take
care of; and the result is large stems and fibres and leaves
called bull-faced tobacco of little value. The mistake is made
in topping at the wrong end. From close observation for
many years | have come to the conclusion that the only place
that any plant of tobacco should ever be topped is at the bot-
tom; save only taking off the seed bud. We well know this is
not orthodox. I have been running in the face and eyes of
old ideas in tobacco growing for the last seven years, and I
have found many of them wrong in theory and practice, and
one or two more will do no harm. It is well known that the
bottom leaves on all plants are light in weight; it takes more
than twice the leaf surface grown in June to weigh one pound
than it does of leaves grown in August. How natural it would
be then to get as many top leaves as possible; especially in a
latitude where the season is ample in length to grow a full crop.
Removing the sand lugs, or leaves which are likely to get
spattered with grit during showers in summer, and giving. the
sun a chance at the roots of the plant, all testify to the utility

23

of doing all the topping at the bottom of the plant. In
Georgia, Scuth Carolina and Florida I would never under
any circumstances top lower than merely take out the seed
bud. Seven months before frost will mature all the leaves
at the top of the tallest plant. I would see that the plant had
a plenty of food to last it through the season. As the leaves
were removed from the bottom of the plant the sap would have
an uninterrupted flow to the leaves above. During this time
that we have been looking for the flies that lay eggs on our
tobacco. We do not mean by this that we have been picking
worms from our tobacco, but have been killing the Hawk that
lays the eggs. The grass has been kept down because there
is nothing that so soon robs tobacco of its oil as grass. No man
ever got a good rich waxy leaf of tobacco from a grassy field,
and knowing this to be so, we keep our grass cleaned out as
we are determined to grow twelve hundred pounds of good
tobacco on each acre we plant; and this cannot be done if we
either starve our plants or allow the grass and weeds to rob
them of their food. As soon as the plant is topped, that is the
seed bud is pinched out, there will start from the fork of
each leaf a sucker. The plant having lost its head—its thing of
beauty on which every tobacco plant seems to pride itself,
it will put forth its best endeavor to get a new one. It will
start a dozen heads at once, and its persistency when the plant
is topped low is amazing. These suckers must be kept down
at any cost, as the sap required for a rich leaf will spend itself
on the suckers, and the result is leaf fibre without virtue or
value. These suckers should be removed when they are but
two inches long. They are easily broken then, and have done
but little damage to the leaf; if left until they get tough the
leaf is often injured, while the sucker is being removed; besides
it has been robbing the leaf from the start. When the method
of curing is by plucking the leaf and topping consequently
nigh or no topping at the top, the plant has less inclination to
put out suckers. As there is a top equal to the root the equili-
brium of the plant is preserved; it has not been outraged or
bisected. It has as much top as root; there are as many
leaves to take up the sap as there are roots to manufacture it.
It is now high time that we had our curing barn all ready, and
our packing house to receive our tobacco when cured, as this
is the turning point.

24

GHAPT ER SIX
GETTING READY TO CURE.

We have got our crop so far along about the middle of
June; a little earlier in South Carolina and Georgia. In Vir-
ginia the middle of July will be the date of the first cures. Our
barn is ready with good dry hard wood, cut three feet long and
piled under the shed: about one-half cord to each curing. We
have built us a store or packing house thirty feet by twenty, ten
foot pitch with good floor at least one foot from the ground,
weather boarded and ceiled inside; lined with paper under the
ceiling, with one door and four windows, built convenient to
the barn, where the tobacco can be carried from the curing
barn to the packing house in baskets by. hand.

About the middle of June in South Carolina, the bottom
leaves on the majority of the plants will show signs of maturity:
the tobacco is commencing to ripen, at the bottom only; the
top leaves are not half grown at this time. These bottom
leaves are light in weight and very thin, but they make the
finest smokers of any leaves on the plant. It pays to save them,
as the price of bright smokers will at all times be remunerative
to the planter, seldom bringing less than ten cents per pound.
These light early matured leaves are easily cured. There is little
time and science required to vellow them; the stems are small
and soon dry out. They make the choicest smoking tobacco
in the world. As soon as the dark green color of the leaf
changes to a pale green, it is the proof that the leaf is ripe; the
growing sap has ceased to flow to the leaf. The tobacco is
better at this time than it will be again. It should be removed
from the stalk at once, for a state of inactivity never takes place
in the life of the tobacco plant. It makes and unmakes all the
same day, destruction and progression is the order of the day,
and have full swing at the same hour on the two extremities of
each plant. The man who thinks to get the best results from a
tobacco plant and uses the stalk as a handle to cure the leaves
on, reckons without his host. These ripe leaves should be

FRONT VIEW
MODERN TOBACCO BARN

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taken from the stalk, laid smoothly without injury in baskets
made for the purpose, and hauled in a wagon to the curing
barn. We have good reasons for removing these leaves from
the plant at this particular time. The first good reason is they
will bring ten cents per pound; besides the plant needs trimming
at the bottom to let the sun in at the root, and give the crop
a tidy look; second, if these ripe leaves are allowed to remain
they will assume a deep yellow color; the sap will ferment, turn
to acid and flow back to the stalk and poison the sap through
its whole circulation; result, red and white blotches called frog-
eye; like pimples on the face of a person with scrofula in the
blood. If the planter has no time to cure them it is better to
break them off and lie on the ground. After the leaves arrive
at the curing barn, they should be carried under the shed, as
the sun will blacken them wherever it strikes them. The women
and children are now called into requisition; a class of labor
never before seen about a curing barn. In fact the Snow
system enables a community to cultivate and safely cure twice
the quantity of tobacco than by the old way on the stalk. Just
here let me remind every planter that if he expects his women
and children to be of good service to him he must make prepa-
ration for their comfort; no woman or girl will sit and _ stick
tobacco leaves on his wires with the sun shining on her head:
they must be sheltered from sun and rain and have seats pro-

26

vided; and their sticks must be set firmly in frames at the right
height so as not to get the arms out of a natural and easy
position; this being done the planter will find his women and
children always ready to help him with his crop, and a ten-year
old girl the best hand on the farm at sticking tobacco. It
will take about four good hands in the field gathering leaves
to fill a barn in ten hours at the first priming. Many plants
will not yield any leaves the first time over. The next time the .
leaves will be larger, and not so many can be put on the points
of wire although the barn will weigh out more tobacco at one
curing. At sundown the barn has been filled: the nine hundred
sticks with their ten thousand points have each about eight
leaves on each point. About eighty thousand leaves of tobacco
in, the barn, that in every system but the Snow plan have
always been sacrificed to a foolish, wasteful method of curing
tobacco. This has been of first primings, if we succeed in get-
ting a good cure will bring the planter ten cents per pound,
and will net one hundred dollars.. So much for the product of
the plant in June in Eastern North Carolina, South Carolina
and Georgia. Virginia will come on later. There are doubt-
less good reasons why the wasteful way of curing tobacco first
came into practice, and has been continued up to the present.
time. Thirty years ago tobacco signified a plug of twist called
Cavendish or leaf suitable for its manufacture. The bottom
leaves on the plant were light and trashy, and did not make a
good chew; they were not wanted for any purpose as they were
allowed to die on the plant, or primed off and left on the ground,
and not considered as waste. When I was a boy, if men
smoked, which they often did, they cut tobacco from a plug,
rolled it in their hands, filled their clay pipes, lighting it with a
coal of fire or if with a flint and steel with punk. Fashions
have changed since then; we smoke now more tobacco than
we chew; the cigarette has been invented. Killikanic, the first
venture in granulated smoking tobacco, is not more than thirtv-
five years old. Now the little bag of smoking tobacco is seen
on all sides, which with the cigars and cheroots the whole
country is enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke, and the best
and most improved tobacco for smoking of any kind is found at
the bottom of the plant; hence the demand for cutters and
smokers, which is likely to continue and increase. For this

27

reason we have filled our barn with these bottom leaves which
we will now proceed to cure, and pack down in such a manner
that when they have been cured and ripened, every man in the
habit of smoking will pronounce them the best he ever saw,
and will not be injured by using them. Having filled the barn
we close all doors and windows. Shut every avenue through
which the outside air can get in or the heat in the barn get out.
We start a smail fire in each furnace. Our object is to raise
the heat to about eighty-five degrees inside of the barn; this
in the month of June or July and to ninety degrees in August or
September and October. If the weather is very hot we will
have the thermometer four or five degrees higher inside of the
barn than it is outside. We will keep the heat about eighty-five
or ninety degrees until the majority of the leaves in the barn
have assumed a light pea green color; it may take thirty or thir-
ty-six hours to accomplish this.

We are now ripening our tobacco or curing it; in plain
English we are getting the green or Chlorophyl out. We are
also getting out the nitrate of potash, and what is of great con-
sequence, we are sweating out the poison, bitter, pungent ele-
ment, known as nicotannin. This latter element is what causes
dizziness, and palpitation of the heart, also heart-burn, when
excessive chewing is indulged in. The nitrates is what bites the
tongue. We express these elements out of the leaf by heat and
sweat, and when ready we put up our heat and open our air ducts
and drive the fumes out through the top of the barn with a strong
current of rarified air. In short this is the only way that tobacco
should ever be cured. We want fancy color and high flavor as
well. We will now proceed to give the reader the most approved
color and tell him how to get it. Remember we are curing
light thin tobacco easily yellowed. We have taken in from the
field only such leaves as were showing signs of maturity. We
picked only such leaves as are turned to a pale green. Thus
we have a barn full of uniformly ripe tobacco, and can yellow
it all or nearly all alike.

ES, our task will be easy when this
“ is the case. If we get ripe and
unripe leaves in the same barn we have.a
dificult task, for this reason we want a

careful, intelligent man in the field to guide
and insist that only ripe leaves be gath-
ered. After we have kept our tobacco in
a heat about ninety degrees until the ma-
jority of the leaves are a light pea green
Wwe will raise the heat to ninety-five degrees. We
will increase the fires a good deal as we shall now
proceed to let in a little air at the bottom, through
our conduits, and open the ventilators at the top
of the barn. The barn is now full of sweat, full
= of the fumes of nicotannin and nitrates, and
We are anxious to rid the barn of a foul odor from the green
tobacco. By raising the heat and forcing in the air at
the base and opening the top of ‘the barn a strong
current is made, and as the barn has a natural draft, being
thirty-four feet high, there is a strong uprush of air which
soon drives out the sweat and the fumes of the green tobacco.
So fearful is the smell and the stench so sickening that if a dog
were tied with his nose over one of our ventilators we would
not answer for his life fifteen minutes. The heat is kept at
ninety-five degrees about two hours, then slowly pushed up to
one hundred, and remain stationary three hours; then slowly go
up to one hundred and five, two hours: then one hundred and
eight, two hours, and then one hundred and twelve degrees, and
stand three hours with all the air holes open except those on the
sides near the bottom of the barn. These are not used only to
let the heat down to cool the barn. Careful watch must now be
had that the leaf dries clear. If the tails of the leaf curl up and
dry bright the heat is all right. If there are signs of dark lines
appearing there is too much heat and too much moisture in the
barn and it would be advisable to drop back to one hundred
and five degrees one hour: then slowly move the heat up to
one hundred and twelve, and then raise one degree an hour until
one hundred and twenty degrees are reached; stand at one hun-
dred and twenty until the leaf is cured: then advance the heat

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INTERIOR VIEW
MODERN TOBACCO BARN

A cue

29

slowly about two degrees an hour to one hundred and forty,
and cure ihe stems hard, when every stem in the barn will snap
like glass draw your fires, open all the doors and windows and
ventilators; sprinkle the basement floor with water, and let the
barn stand open one night. The tobacco will be ready to take
out of the barn in twenty-four hours. We have now cured
about one thousand pounds of July primings, or June in Geor-
gia. These are mostly smokers. The next day they are ready
to take from the barn and carry to the packing house. The
same baskets are in use for emptying the barn that were used
in filling it. The racks are let down; the sticks are taken from
the racks, and set in a frame where the leaves are rapidly taken
from the wires, and the sticks put back where they were taken
from. Before the tobacco is removed from the wires it is of
the highest importance that the leaf is in the right condition
to handle. If too dry it will be broken and only fit for scrap or
eranulation; if too soft and limber it will heat and get mouldy
in bulk and be likely to come out an orange instead of a lemon
color, which is so much prized. This lemon color is easier
got than kept; if tobacco is bulked while in too high case it
is sure to go. If once gone it never returns. It is of no partic-
ular value; as an orange red on a filler is not thought to be
detrimental to the chew; but it is fancy; and it is the color in
cutters and wrappers that brings the prices. All trades have
fancies, and the tobacco trade is as full of them as any trade
known and it pays the farmer to cater to them. At this point the
farmer must put his best man on guard. When the leaf is
in a condition that it can be clasped in the hand at the middle
and lightly squeezed without cracking the fibres but little, and
the stem is hard and brittle, the tobacco will keep if closely
packed with the stems outward. In this condition the bulk
should be made on the floor of the packing house in a long row,
with the tips of the leaves lapping each other, and the stems out-
ward like bunching shingles. The bulks will soon settle together,
and will go through a mild sweat which is beneficial; necessarily
resulting in great good as we shall show further on. Let the
bulks be covered with blankets or tarpaulins to keep the moisture
in, and the top from bleaching, or going and coming with the
changes in the weather. The bulks will require watching for the
first ten days to see that they do not get unduly warm; if so they

30

may be rebulked or aired in the warm spots. The second curing
will be on now in about eight days, and will be of the cutter type.
The leaves will be larger, more uniform in size and better color,
and bring nearly double the price per pound. Care should be
taken now to get only ripe leaves; get only the leaves that show
a pale green color. If leaves are a clear yellow color in the field
break them off and leave them on the ground. The oil that was
in the leaf is there no longer. The acid caused by the fermenta-
tion of the sap has destroyed the virtue of the leaf, only its bad
or pungent elements are left. It has no weight or virtue as
tobacco, and time and space are wasted in handling them.
The curing process is practically the same as with the first cure;
save this, the planter is working on a barn of tobacco if rightly
handled will produce him two hundred dollars instead of one
hundred, and should have his best attention from the beginning
to the end.

T is just here we wish to impress the
reader with the fact that absolutely
good sweet tobacco, free from the

bitter, biting elements cannot be
cured outside of a structure or barn
that is wanting in capacity to retain
the moisture until the tannin and ni-

ates are thoroughly sweated out of
the leaf, while in the green state.
The barn must also have the capac-
ity to expel these objectionable ele-
ments out of the building, as fast as
liberated, by a strong current of air
which the building must be able to
manufacture at the will of the curer.

This is where the Modern Barn excels all others, and tobacco
absolutely perfect, cannot be cured outside of it, or some struct-
ure having its abilities.

The plants in the field have now had an average of four
leaves taken from the bottoms; the sun has full action on the
roots. The hoe should keep the weeds down; and July is the
time to watch the young Hawk moths; they are now full in the
breeding season, and in a few days will be ready for business.
This is the farmer’s time. Seeing no eggs on his plant is no

eal

sign of security. It gives him no surety that he will escape
them. If he has kept his Jimpson blossoms poisoned he is all
right; if he has not he may be all wrong. The suckers must
be watched and kept pinched off, or the crop will not weigh out
twelve hundred pounds per acre. This second barn will be cut-
ters; the first was smokers. If they are packed separate, the
planter will find his crop practically graded. There will be
three or four more curings on these same plants; in Georgia,
perhaps more, if the sucker crop comes in well. The third cur-
ing will be a mixed barn of cutters and wrappers, and should be
about fourteen hundred pounds in weight, and be worth about
two hundred and fifty dollars. The curing will require about
twenty hours more time; the stems are larger, the leaf heavier,
and the heat must be run a little slower, as there is more sugar
in the leaf. If a light yellow is obtained, the yellowing pro-
cess will require more time.

32

GHAPIEAR ax.
CURING FILLERS MAHOGANY.

We have one more barn of tobacco to cure; if it is the last
it is by no means the least. It is the part of the crop that
largely gives character to the whole crop. It is the filler for
plug or chewing tobacco; the tip leaves in the stalk cure sys-
tem. These are in great part harvested green; the exigencies
often arising as the curing season compels this. Will my crop
lose more at the bottom than it will gain at the top, if I let it
stand another week is the burning question with the stalk curers
as the season comes near at hand. Will there be frost is another
question which hurries the late planting into the curing barn.
These are cut and carried to the curing barn on the stalk
where the curer has to wrestle with the problem of curing ripe
leaves, Over-ripe leaves and green leaves all in the same barn,
and the same heat. This is as difficult as it would be for a man
to ride two horses at the same time; one of which wanted to
strike a two-forty gait and the other a four-twenty gait, the rider
is in a strained condition, and is likely to end his journey on
foot. This condition is the prime cause of the two hundred
millions pounds of tobacco denominated nondescript, trash is
the proper term. With the Snow system, we let these tip leaves
- get their full growth and get fully ripe before we gather them;
they have the full power of the stalk to feed them. They get
very rich in a short time. Like a sow with ten pigs, if five are
weaned, the cther five get more milk. If the rains are abundant
they will keep green after they are fully ripe. The planter can
always know when they are fully ripe by the grain on the leaf,
and by the absence of the clammy hairs which are always seen
on an unripe tobacco leaf. If there is no danger of frost nor
signs of little red spots on the face of the leaf, it is not best to
hurry the curing; but if the red spots have appeared, it is a sure
sign of decay, and the curing should commence at once. Fully
ripe tobacco is our motto, with as much fat in the leaf as pos-
sible. We are now working for some choice filler, and expect

Sp)

our barn will weigh out two thousand pounds at least. If they
are not turning yellow on the hill we will know that they are
nevertheless rich in oil of tobacco. It will take us longer to
cure them, but we will be well paid for our time. When we are
ready to cure, we will crowd our barn full of these green leaves,
and put in one fire to warm the barn to 90 degrees. Let it hang
two days. . Afterwards, we will keep the heat on about thirty-
six hours at ninety degrees, and gradually raise the heat about
one degree an hour with the conduits and ventilators open until
we have reached one hundred and thirty-five degrees and stand
there until the leaf is cured, and the stems still soft and not
cured. Now draw the fires and let the barn stand closed up tight
top and bottom,,and let it remain three or four days; the sap in
the stem will run back into the leaf. Then rekindle the fires with
the ventilators cpen, and start the heat slowly about one degree
an hour until one hundred and thirty-five degrees are again
reached; and remain there until the stems are all cured dry.
The first stage of curing is finished. The second stage will be-
gin just where the first left off. If the color is green on the
leaf when the curing is finished have no fears. »We have only
commenced the curing of this class of tobacco. After the to-
bacco has come in case, with the feather of the leaf soft and the
stem hard, we will remove the leaf from the barn, and bulk it
in a close compact body, and cover it up close with blankets
and not disturb it until the following May or June, when we
will market some of the richest mahogany fillers and wrappers
ever seen on any market, and never fail. The heat in the curing
barn must never be allowed higher than one hundred and forty
degrees. This leaves the vegetable albumen in perfect cond1-
tion, and the ripening process is carried on in the bulk. The
excess of sugar in the leaf prevents the bright lemon color in
the curing barn; but in the bulk this saccharine matter forms
itself into small polka dots and the spotted mahogany leaf so
much prized by the manufacturer of choice chewing stock is
the unvarying result. In Georgia, and sections with long sea-
sons, a sucker or two can be turned out and some choice
smokers can be grown that will materially add to the value of
the crop. These mahogany fillers and wrappers have been lying
in bulk from the day they were cured; they were packed down
in the month of September when the weather was warm; they

34

went through a sweat while lying in bulk; this sweat was a
species of fermentation; a condition necessary for tobacco to
pass through before it is safe to either put in hogsheads, or to
manufacture and put in boxes.

If the heat is run above 140 degrees, on rich waxy leaves
and they are bulked in a moist condition they are inclined to
stick together, but if cured so as it leaves the wax in the cells
capped over, and not cooked out, the bulk will remain for years
without sticking together or other injury.

It is now safe to pass through the month of May. The May
sweat comes to it in proper form and all fullness in the month
of October. [f the color had been right, it would have heen
ready and perfectly safe to have worked it into plug in the
winter, January following the cure. We cured it slow, and at
a low temperature in order to retain all the albuminoids and
essential oils in their most perfect condition. These must not
be cooked or hardened by excessive heat. The oils of tobacco
will preserve the leaf and the manufactured goods better than
any substitute; nothing can ever take and fill its place. The
attempt is often made to find some commodity to replace the
virtue that the stalk cure process, with two hundred degrees of
heat has taken from the leaf; but up to date they stop at the mo-
lasses barrel. By the curing and fermenting in bulk the large,
costly prize houses are not needed. They are worse than use-
less, as tobacco remains crude and unfermented until it is taken
down; and while it hangs in the open air is so much time lost.

‘no
Or

CLA Re exch
BULKING AFTER CURING.

To the manufacturer of plug or smoking tobacco or cigars
the proper and immediate bulking and fermenting is of the
highest importance, as it puts the manufacturer in possession
of seasoned fermented goods one year ahead of the usual time;
and being cured separate from the stalk the leaf possesses a
flavor that cannot be had from stalk cured leaf.

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STOVE. MODERN TOBACCO BARN.

Two planters may grow tobacco in the same field, of the
same variety and practically the same method of cultivation; one
man will sell at fifty cents per pound and the other at five cents
per pound; the sale perhaps on the same floor and to the same
parties the same day. This difference is to be seen daily on every
loose leaf market in the country.

This difference in value is caused mainly in the time and
manner of curing. How important then that the planter under-

stands his business when he comes to gather his crop. If the
planter cuts his crop and cures it on the stalk he hazards every-
thing on a single throw of the die; he has but one chance at the

36

cure; his leaves in every stage of maturity are cured in the same
barn and in the same heat. If his crop has been overtaken with
a severe drought late in the season the bottom leaves have
ripened early and the crop is composed largely of trash lugs and
half grown green tips. If the season is wet the large sappy
stalk takes virtue from the leaf, and poor color and a leaf void of
virtue is the rule and little money for the product. There is no
escaping these results with the stalk curing plan; they are the
inevitable results of the faulty method and will continue so long
as it is practiced. With tobacco growers a lack of knowledge
is a very expensive situation, over-ripe trash lugs, and under-
ripe green tips are not the legitimate product of the plant. They
are the price men pay for not knowing how, when they embark
in the industry. This mass of nondescript aggregates more than
one third of our annual crop. It is the fearful price men are
paying for their reverence for the customs of their daddies.
Prejudice is strong in the human mind; we are actuated by it
when we little think. It is a kind of knowledge men obtain with-
out effort; no time is lost in getting it, hence its abundance.
Two hundred million pounds of cheap trash lugs and green tips
is the price the planters annually pay for their reverence for the
old custom of curing on the stalk. A traveler passing a field saw
a man plowing heavy land with a diminutive jackass. He ad-
vised the plowman to trade his jack for a horse that would plow
his land deeper and faster. To this suggestion the plowman
replied that “his father did his plowing that way, and a jackass
was good enough for him.” The loss in weight and value of the
crop by wrong methods of curing is simply enormous. The
test made by the North Carolina experiment station during the
season of ninety-one at Oxford, North Carolina, settles the ques-
tion fully. While it made no new discovery, it was the first
authoritative statement of the facts, and brought to notice a sub-
ject of great moment; very much to the surprise of the planting
industry, and in fact to the world of tobacco. They were not
prepared to believe that a wrong method of curing was des-
tructive of 40 per cent. of the actual value of every acre of to-
bacco they grow; yet this is the fact revealed; and no possible
amount of explanation can make a better showing for the waste-
ful way now in practice. Below we give the report of the
officials of the North Carolina experiment station made in Jan-
uary, ninety-two.

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REAR VIEW
MODERN TOBACCO BARN.

CEEAP TER Gir

EXPERIMENTS SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE VALUE OF CURING
TOBACCO UPON THE STALK, AND THE SNOW
WIRE LEAF CURE.

The comparative test instituted near Oxford, N. C., to show
the relative value between the common method of curing to-
bacco upon the stalk, and the new Snow method of curing the
leaf as it ripens has been completed by the North Carolina Agri-
cultural Experiment Station. The following final results are
_ given as matters of interest in advance of their publication in the
Station bulletin, where the detailed progress of the test, and the
methods adopted to insure accuracy will be found. One acre of
growing tobacco was carefully measured off in a field where the
plants were as identical as possible in size and hardiness. One-
half of the acre was cured by the Snow process, and the other
half by the common method of stalk curing. Absolute impar-
tiality was observed, strictest precautions were taken to prevent
any one or anything influencing the result of their cure. The
tobacco was graded by an experienced grader, and five experts
valued the piles as they lay on the floor (independently of each
other) without any knowledge of the origin of each pile. The
values were obtained by multiplying the weight of each pile by
the average of the five values placed upon it. Subsequent sale on
the floor of the Farmer’s Alliances warehouse in Oxford con-
firmed very closely the correctness of their averages. The
weights and values are as follows:

For the half acre the common stalk cure method gave 326
Ibs., valued at $38.30, an average of $11.74 per hundred pounds.
For the other half acre, the Snow wire cure method gave 454
pounds valued at $63.14, an average of $13.96 per hundred
pounds. The cost of labor and the method must be deducted
from these figures. The results will then be for the stalk cure
total value at $36.22; and for the Snow wire cure total value
$57.96, a difference in favor of the Snow wire cure of $20.75 per
half acre, or $41.50 per one acre.

38

The experiment was made in the interest of agriculture solely.
If the existing method of curing tobacco can be improved, and
a better one substituted our tobacco growers should know it. It
is assuredly the duty of the experiment station to ascertain this
fact, and it became known.—H. B. BATTLe, Director, EXpErt-
MENT STATION, RALEIGH, N. C.

Let the planter take one hundred pounds of good rich tobacco
leaves cured in a heat no greater than one hundred and forty
degrees; weigh carefully and cover close in a box where the air
cannot penetrate the bulk; at the end of four months, if taken
up and weighed, it will show a gain of five pounds. If the same
amount of good tobacco cured on the stalk at about one hundred
and eighty degrees; stripped and weighed and hung up in a prize
house in the ordinary way; if weighed at the end of four months
will show a loss of ten pounds. Just here is to be found a dis-
tinction very destructive to profits in manufacture. The differ-
ence between hanging and bulking is exactly fifteen pounds in
one hundred pounds of tobacco. We now call attention to the
short sketch given below which makes interesting reading when
a man is looking for facts:

We, G. T. Walker, of the county of Rockingham and State
of North Carolina, and T. C. Blalock, of Greenville county and
State of North Carolina, hereby certify that on the nineteenth
day of September, 1891, did cut thirty plants of tobacco to make
an honest test, which is the better way of curing tobacco on the
Snow process or the old process.

We cut plants of uniform size and plucked just half the leaves
alternatively, and the difference in the weight was just four
ounces. There were two hundred and fifty-eight leaves on the
thirty plants, one hundred and twenty-nine were cured by the
Snow process, and weighed three pounds and fourteen and one-
half ounces; and one hundred and twenty-nine were cured on
the stalk, and weighed three pounds, ten and one-half ounces,
September 24, 1891.

G. T. WAEKER
1: de BEALOGS

Sworn and subscribed before me this 24th day of September,
1891, at Oxford, Granville county, North Carolina,
SAA eS:
Justice of the Peace.

39

Mr. G. T. Walker is a prominent farmer in Rockingham
county; and Mr. Blalock is assistant to Dr. Battle in the State
Agricultural Experiment Station.

The curing was done in the Snow barn, the tobacco hanging
side by side in the same heat. For further proof in the same
direction read Mr. W. O. Jackson’s test which shows how little
excuse the farmers have for the belief that is so prevalent among
them that the stalk feeds the leaf during the curing process; when
the fact remains without contradiction that the leaf is spoiled or
robbed of its virtue; its essential oils equal to six pounds to every
one hundred pounds cured on the stalk.

Mr. W. O. Jackson’s testimony is given below:

Culler, Stokes County, N. C., January 8.
Mr. W. H. Snow,

My brother handed me a letter from you, of which I find you
have been misinformed. It was I that made the test in curing
leaves of tobacco on wires and on the stalk last fall. I selected
well matured plants of even number of leaves. I took off half
of the leaves on a stalk—sometimes taking off the south side
of the stalk, and sometimes taking off the north side—when I
would take the top leaf; next time would leave top leaf on stalk;
with its half number of leaves put on split stick; put the leaves
on 4'2 Snow’s Wire Stick; cured them in log barn in same tier,
side by side. First test pulled off and weighed. Leaves cured
on wires being 54 in number, weighed over one-fourth pound
more than same number cured on stalk. The leaves cured on
the stalk appeared (next to the stalk) dead and papery, and of a
dark or bluish color, which warehousemen and tobacco dealers
pronounce unripe tobacco, while those cured on wires are not
so, but appear more lively and the color good to end of the stem.

Yours truly,

W. O. JACKSON.

If this six pounds in one hundred be added to the fifteen
pounds as the difference between hanging up or bulking down,
it will show twenty-one pounds of very much better tobacco.
This, in itself, is a profit greater than most men are making on
their manufactured goods; these are cold facts which plug men
will do well to examine.

40

We captured this nugget in Philosophy six years ago, in 1886,
with a pair of grocers’ scales; and have been proclaiming it while
the numerous experiment stations with their costly laboratories
and numerous aids were hesitating and looking wise. They do
not like to admit a stubborn fact of so much importance. They
have been stumbling headlong over the truth during the last
thirty years and have not been able to locate it. This experi-
ment was made with the most confident expectation that the
stalk cure end of this acre of tobacco would be the heaviest; the
advice of the old farmers was freely given; the result was the
cause of great chagrin. The loss of forty-one dollars and fifty
cents on each acre of tobacco planted in the stalks comes nearly
up to the price obtained per acre as shown by the eleventh
census; namely fifty-one dollars and twenty-five cents per acre,
eight dollars and seventy-five cents short of one hundred per
cent. during the last ten years.

These figures show a very urgent demand for a change in the
method of handling the crop. This change is likely to take
place slowly but surely. As the location changes the method
of curing will change; the center of the tobacco industry will
change likewise. Tobacco growing is no longer as remunerative
as formerly, either in Virginia or North Carolina. The reasons
are obvious. Tobacco is more generally grown over a greater
portion of the country; the Virginia and North Carolina soil has
had the tobacco taken out of it; their facilities for producing a
good crop are growing less every year; their methods of culti-
vation and curing are out of date and not in touch with the
times. New men, new soil, and new and improved methods will
gradually crowd the old planters out. The masses who use
tobacco will demand and obtain a more wholesome and pleasanter
tobacco. They will obtain it from the new territories with the
new ideas. The trend of tobacco is not westward or northward,
but surely southward; where a longer season and more sunshine
can be had, and more pounds per acre of milder, sweeter tobacco
of every description and for all purposes can be obtained. The
wasteful, barbarous method of cure will not follow the planting
to the south to any extent. Some will come from Virginia and
bring their notions with them; but they will soon find their bitter
tobacco is not wanted; there will be shown them a better way.

41

CHAP TER 2xItr
BAD EFFECTS OF CURING ON THE STALK.

The same variety from the same field, cured the same day has
a marked difference both in taste and smell. There is not the
pungent bitterness, found in all new cured tobacco, when cured
on the stalk. This biting element is so pronounced that tobacco
is considered unfit for use until two years old. Time must be
given the leaf to discharge and neutralize the poison contained
in the nitrates and nicotannin which it takes up in some form
from the stalk, before it is fit for use. These elements must be
mellowed; a chemical change must take place; hence about two
years time is taken to get rid of what the stalk is foolishly allowed
to put in. An element not belonging to the leaf, but to the stalk
only, and in every way highly objectionable. This is one of the
strong reasons why we remove our leaves from the stalk before
curing. It is to the thorough sweating of the leaf in the green
state that we attribute the excellence of the tobacco cured in the
Snow barn. It is not enough that it is cured separate from the
stalk. It must be thoroughly sweated while in the green state.
The Snow barn is built with this object strongly in view. The
old log barn has not this important requisite; neither has it the
power under all circumstances to relieve itself of a sweat, if by
any chance it gets one. Just what the chemical action is on the
leaf that takes place at this sweating period is questionable; the
result is what we are now dealing with. At the time this sweat-
ing is taking place the barn is filled with offensive odors which
the heat seems to express from the leaves. The process of ex-
pelling these odors continues so long as there is any sweat or
sap in either leaf or stem. The air in the room is completely
changed every five minutes during three days with the heat
about one hundred and thirty degrees average. It is plain to
see how we get sweet, wholesome tobacco, freer from all offen-
sive properties than can be obtained from any other known way.
The sweating has another good effect on the leaf. It has a
strong tendency to strengthen the fibre in wrapper leaves for

42

plug and cigars. This is a great advantage. It has also a
marked tendency to contract the stems and fibres as they appear
less prominent in the leaf so cured than in leaf cured on the
stalk in the open barn. It is a fact well established that a com-
mon hogshead will hold two hundred pounds more leaf under
the same pressure of wire cure than stalk cure; this owing solely
to the difference in the size of the stems and fibres, and to the
fact that the pores of the wire stem are filled with wax solid;
while the stem of the stalk cured leaf is porous like dry honey-
comb. Another proof of our theory that the leaf is robbed of
its weight while curing if attached to the stalk. This drainage
of virtue is greater by the slow process by air cure than when
rapidly cured by artificial heat.

If the loss of money was the only evil it might be tolerated;
but unfortunately the greater evil is yet to come. This mass of
stuff is all used in some form by the devotees of the weed; not
in its normal state, but doctored with every conceivable nos-
trum; the unripe pungent flavor of the green tip leaves must be
disguised. The leaf was harvested while the albumen was in the
matrix. Instead of the essential oils we have an acid with a
biting flavor without a name.. The wax cells that were to con-
tain the Empyrean oil was in the embryo. All these requisites
of perfect tobacco would have been there in perfect form if they
had been allowed time; but the exigencies of the case demanded
immediate action. The bottom of the plant was in a worse
condition, if possible, than the top. The bottom was rotting.
What else to do but cut the plant and save a part of the leaves
right, and do the best we can with the rest?

The over ripe stuff is little else than leaf fibre; the oil has been
there, every requisite of perfect tobacco has been there; but alas
the laggard husbandman was not there. The oil of tobacco
has gone back into the soil by capillary action, leaving the dry
bones of the leaf without substance or value; a sort of sponge
to absorb and hold any substitute the manipulator sees fit to
add; the names of which are legion.

To the poison inherent in this mass of unripe tobacco and its
concomitants, can be traced the unpleasant odor of the bad
cigar; the bad taste in the mouth after smoking either pipe or
cigar; the dizziness in the head, and weakening of the eye-
sight; frequent heart-burn, palpitation of the heart and kindred

cies

THE FRIEDENWALD CO, LITH, BALTO,

INTERIOR OF BASEMENT
MODERN TOBACCO BARN

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43

ailments. Good ripe, well cured tobacco, unless used to excess,
will not produce the evils here named. The drying of the leaf
on the stalk is harmful in many ways; the real virtue of the
leaf is extracted; the body draws sustenance from the extremi-
ties at the time of dissolution; and the vicious elements of the
poison, filthy stalk are imparted to the leaf by the volatile ex-
halations from the stalk. This is apparent in the marked dit-
ference well known to exist in every case where the leaf is cured
off the stall when contrasted with the leaf cured on the stalk.

We have up to this time cured four or five barns of tobacco,
taking from each plant as many leaves as we found in the right
condition to cure each time we filled our barn. Our primings,
our cutters and wrappers have been cured and are safely housed,
and are going through the second stage of curing so important
to the manufacturer, and the man who expects to receive pleas-
ure by either smoking or chewing the product.

THE CELEBRATED CHAMPION WAREHOUSE BASKET.
GRADING FOR MARKET.

The grading of tobacco for market is very important and not
easily learned; it is said that “each buyer pays for the bulk by

44

judging of the poorest leaf in the pile,” if this is the case, it is
very important that it be properly graded, so that the good rich
and sound leaves should be bulked together, and the poor leaves
in another pile separate.

A leaf with good color, size, and rich, with two or three worm
holes in it is classed as a filler, and the price varies from 6 and 8
cents 10775 ccents.

The large light bright leaf is a cutter, while a leaf of the same
general appearance, if heavy, or good body, goes as a first class
wrapper, the difference in price is as 20 to 60. The length of
the leaves must be looked to as long leaf only goes into first
grade wrappers. The leaves of good texture and thickness, but
short, should go by themselves, as second grade wrappers, and
sell for about one-half the price of long wrappers.

Smokers and cutters should have the same care in sorting as
the wrappers, and should be tied into bundles of about ten
leaves, with the stems nicely rolled and covered with a good
tough leaf.

Grading is an art that pays the planter to study and is only
learned by watching an expert, it cannot be handled when dry,
and the “ just right” condition when put on the market is often
of the highest importance to the grower.

The small and broken leaves are graded as bright or dark
smokers—if light—but if rich and waxy, are classed as fillers,
and the two grades embrace fully one-half of the crop.

CHART ERe ScLy:
CIGAR LEAF.

It is believed that tobacco can
be grown with a good degree of
success in a greater range of
latitude than any crop of any

commercial value; but when we

“get the best results from the
Virginia plug stock, we doubt the
propriety of planting it farther
north than the thirty-sixth par-
allel.

It is a plant that requires sunshine, and if the plant does its
best under the best condition, it must have immunity from frost
at least six months in the growing. The plant thrives well in
sections north of thirty-six degrees, but it must be pruned to
suit the season. The best results are not obtained in the culti-
vation. The average per acre in Virginia falls below six hundred
pounds; while twelve hundred pounds is as easily grown in South
Carolina and Georgia, where the season is longer, and the right
method of cure is adopted. It is plain to see that the cultivation
of tobacco will gradually move in the direction where the best
results can be obtained. Ten years will see South Carolina and
Georgia the center of the tobacco growing district of the United
States. With the change in the location will come the change
in the method of cultivation and curing. Our foreign trade will
be greatly increased by reason of having a superior tobacco to sell,
which will come with change of climate and manner of growing
and curing. Let Georgia and South Carolina take hold of their
opportunity; no fear for the result. If failure will come, it will
come through your own action or lack of faith. Don’t think
you can succeed by adopting the Virginia methods of either cul-
tivating or curing. The Virginian did the best he could with
his system and climate. You have a better climate; but with
the Virginia system it is of no use to you. The tobacco plant

ij,
te

PRM iR UAC Hen

46

will bring all its propensities and peculiarities when it is trans-
ferred to South Carolina and Georgia. It will grow green leaves
on the top of the plant, and at the same time ripen them at the
bottom, and if the planter is not prepared to cure them when
they get ripe he will miss curing them at all; and will also miss
the sale of about one-half of the legitimate product of his crop;
he will also lose the part of his crop that is soon to be as highly
prized as any part of it; namely the light bright, mild smokers,
than which no part of the crop will be more sought for, when
the trades and people learn their value.

We have said in a former chapter that we believed in ten years
the center of the tobacco industry would be near Columbia,
South Carolina. The bulk of the cigar leaf will be grown in
South Georgia and Florida. The same reasons hold good with
cigar leaf as with Virginia leaf. The seasons are long and the
plant has ample time to mature its entire product from bottom
to top; this it cannot do in shorter and colder seasons; besides
the power of the sun is exerted to little purpose on the plant
during a season too short to produce a rich leaf from bottom
to top of the plants. The island of Cuba has long and easily
held the honor of producing the best cigar in the world; no part
of the world questions her supremacy. The same variety planted
in Pennsylvania does not come up to the native Cuban leaf. And
yet her soil is no better than that of Florida, South Georgia or
Louisiana. It is her length of season, her long hours of tropical
sunshine that gives to her tobacco its unrivalled excellence.
Florida, while not quite so far south has all the benefits of sea
air and a humid atmosphere, which some claim as the prime
cause of the superiority of Cuban tobacco. The average per
acre will be much greater if the leaf cure is adopted. It is safe
to assume that Florida, South Georgia and Louisiana will grow
cigar leaf as good as can be grown in the world If their climate
is lacking a little in producing a perfect cigar leaf, the deficiency
can be more than supplied with the right method of curing. We
have no hesitancy in saying that Havana seed leaf grown in
Georgia and cured in the Snow barn will make a cigar that will
satisfy more men than Cuban leaf cured as it is in the air in
Cuba. A pleasant flavor, a toughness of fibre, an oily glossy
appearance to the wrapper is uniformly obtained when the leaf has
been plucked from the stalk and thoroughly sweated in the green

47

state, the bitter element driven out of it. This method of cure
would greatly add to the good qualities of Cuba’s best leaf if the
whole crop was harvested when ripe. The trash lugs that have
been allowed to remain on the plant until they are over-ripe,
have lost the essential oils; the virtue of the leaf has gone to the
ground by capillary action, the fibre of the leaf is left, and with
it a bitter residue of the albumen. The leaf is harvested and used
as a filler for cigars; an unsavory cigar is the result. The smoke
is as blue and as hard on the eye and mouth as smoke from burn-
ing wood, and the cigar has a very short life, and is soon burned
out.

If the plant is cut with green tips there are more fillers; this
time not over-ripe, but unripe. We always know cigars made
of this kind of filler; it takes longer to smoke them and all day
to get the bad taste out of your mouth. This kind of cigar fur-
nishes the long stubs thrown into the spittoons and gutters, and
causes a man to swear off on cigars, and buy a pipe which he
smokes as long as the bad taste from the cigar remains in his
mouth.

The bane of the industry is the millions of pounds of nonde-
script trash, over-ripe lugs, and under-ripe top leaves; stuff that
crowds every market; it goes to swell the stock always on hand in
the market reports, grown and handled at a loss. It costs about
eight cents to grow and handle it, and it sells at about four cents
average. This stuff will largely disappear with the leaf cure.
The mystery is solved as soon as the planter gathers his ripe
leaves only and cures them. This waste cannot be avoided; it
is a condition inseparable from the present process of curing on
the stalk. No amount of science or attention can secure a crop
without these dead and green leaves at top and bottom of each
plant. No man ever saw a plant of tobacco with all the leaves
on it equally ripe. This is true of cigar leaf, and true of Virginia
leaf, no matter how or where grown. There is a disposition to
utilize all the leaves grown, and as only about one-third of the
legitimate product of each plant is in a ripe state at the same
time it is easy to see where all the bad cigars come from. The
over-ripe leaf has lost its oil, its aroma is not on hand. The
smoker gets no pleasure for his money when he buys this kind
of cigar; but when the leaf cure is adopted, the whole crop is
harvested leaf by leaf as fast as they ripen. No over-ripe leaves,

48

no green leaves, no pole burn on the best wrapper leaves, no
stripping in midwinter. While others are handling their crop
the man with the Snow barn is handling his money, full value
for every leaf grown in his fields, and quick returns. His crop
was harvested in the best condition, and cured in its best form
to make high grade cigars from each leaf. No process of har-
vesting tobacco is ever likely to do more than this.

The method of curing the cigar leaf is simple and inexpensive,
the seal-skin brown color is given to the leaf in about five days
from the field, a light brick color or a dark brick color, or any
shade of brown or red the curer chooses, it is easier to get the
brown cigar color and keep it, than to get and keep the lemon
yellow. When the curing is done the crop is safe and absolutely
in the curer’s keeping, he has no fear of pole burn, nor is he
stripping his tobacco in midwinter. The crop is placed in bulk,
direct from the curing barn, where it is allowed to ripen the
albumen and mellows the nitrates, and in ninety days from the
field the whole crop is in the hands of the cigar manufacturer
when good cigars can be made from every leaf grown in the
field, as none but just ripe leaves went into the curing barn.

49

CHAP LR eV
WHITE VEIN.

There is the white vein in cigar leaf which sadly puzzles the
leaf dealer, and detracts from the profits of the man who grows
the crop. The remedy is easy, and the cure as certain as that
sunset will follow sunrise. Stop drying your leaves on the stalk,
and instead of the oil being extracted from the veins, it will re-
main in them, and give the fibres a dark color, and the leaf more
weight, and the cigar a much higher flavor, as the oil is the
foundation of all these essentials. It is plain to see the import-
ance of this element; don’t waste it; it leads the manufacturer into
all kinds of difficulties, and it means a lot of poor cigars where
there might be good ones from the same crop. When a tobacco
plant has been severed from its roots and hung up to dry the
first sign of trouble is seen at the tip of the topmost leaf. The
point begins to wilt in a warm day in less than ten minutes after
the cutting. At the moment of cutting, the roots of the plant
were actively pumping sap to these top leaves through the sap
passages or pores of the stalk which at once feel the loss of this
life-giving force. A reaction immediately takes place. The
stalk being the largest and strongest part of the plant imme-
diately commences to draw sustenance from the weaker parts
or its extremities. “The points of the leaves wilt, the extremities
get lifeless”; this is true and perfectly natural in both animal and
vegetable life. The wilting of the leaf is not caused so much
by evaporation of the sap through the pores of the leaf as by.
the absorption of the sap from the leaf to the stalk. This ab-
sorption takes place through the stem and veins of the leaf.
When the stalks are large this drainage is correspondingly so;
and during the slow process of drying out the stalks and stems
in the tobacco sheds these veins and fibres are left with little sub-
stance in the shape of oil of tobacco in them. They are sucked
dry; they become woody and hard, and as the only substance
that can give them any color is taken from them they become
white, and when they are subjected to the sweating process the

50

oil which is in the feather of the leaf cannot penetrate them, so
they remain white. Such leaf will do for fillers and binders, but
look bad on the outside of a cigar. Variety and soil have some-
thing to do with the size and woody texture of these veins, but
the chief cause is the wrong method of curing. The only ele-
ment that can keep these veins soft and give them a dark
color is extracted from them by a method of curing that has
nothing to recommend it but its age. Let not the planter think
there is anything new or strange in this philosophy; it is as old
as the hills and like the statutes of Medes and Persians, they
alter not. Every blade of grass, every stalk of corn, every plant
of tobacco, every herb with its root in the soil, every man or
animal or creeping thing on the face of the earth 1s amenable
to the fixed law, that the body draws sustenance from its extremi-
ties at the time of dissolution. When the tobacco industry shall lay
hold of this self-evident truth they will be well rid of an incubus
that now hangs like a mill-stone about their necks. Six pounds
of the oil will be added to every one hundred pounds grown;
the trash will disappear entirely from the crop. Its presence is
a condition and not a necessity; the white vein will disappear
when the curing is done right. The bitter unsavory cigar will
be displaced with a good cigar at the same price now charged
for the poor one. The crop may be grown right, the curing is
like the cooking of the wheat crop or corn or potato crop, if the
cooks do not understand their business, then sodden cakes are
the result for the table. It is of quite as much importance to the
crop to cure it as to grow it. All tobacco leaves when well
ripened in the field are greatly improved in flavor by being sub-
jected to a heat that will divest the gluten or albuminoids of the
leaf of a raw green flavor that is peculiar to air cured tobacco
and constitutes the chief objection to air cur® or sun cure chew-
ing tobacco.

If you would have the best cigar possible to obtain, strip the
leaves from the growing plant when they are ripe in their best
possible condition and cure them in three or four days artificial
heat, instead of two or three months by cold air drying. This
has the same effect on a leaf of tobacco as the artificial and rapid
evaporation has on fruit. The flavor of the fruit is caught and
held in it. The heat closes and seals up the pores; the virtue is
all retained, while the process of drying by air allows the flavor

51

to escape. The glucose or diastase is not retained in its best form;
it escapes through the pores of the fruit during a long slow pro-
cess of drying, which is prevented if the heat is applied at once
sufficient to arrest the evaporation of the virtue and let only the
water escape. This is the reason that the evaporated fruit sells
at twelve and one-half cents per pound when air dried fruit only
three or four cents and is a drug on the market at any price. It
has taken about fifteen years to convince the public of this fact,
although it was as plain fifteen years ago as it is to-day. The
time is not far distant when tobacco dried in the air in the ordi-
nary way will not be used for cigars for the same reason. The
choice elements have been drawn out of the leaf by the power
of the stalk, as the greater shall draw from the lesser is a well
established law in botany. The best elements of the leaves are
not retained when they are left in a crowded building with a
mass of stalks that are in the first stages of decay. The exhal-
ations from the stalk are absorbed by the leaf to a greater or
less degree, if the weather is warm and damp the condition is
worse than if cold and dry.

There is positively no element in the tobacco stalk that can be
of the slightest benefit to the leaf, it cannot add anything to the
leaf but its poison odors, but they do draw virtue or oil of to-
bacco from the leaf equal to six pounds to every one hundred
pounds of the leaf grown.

See report from Experiment Station, page 37.

In this way, and for this reason a better cigar can be obtained
than any other way. In the manufacture of chewing tobacco
the bad condition of the leaf can be disguised by the use. of
licorice, sugar, molasses, and scores of nostrums, but the cigar
stands on the naked merits of its composite leaf.

If the leaf failed.in its growth, or more likely in its cooking
or curing, the result is a bad cigar; there is no help for it and
the man who buys it is sorry before it is half burned out, and he
feels as 1f he had wasted his:money and he is likely to give the
vender a wide berth in the future. If a generous friend makes
him a present of a cigar of this kind, the friendship is apt to be
cocled at least as long as the flavor of the bad cigar remains.
The proper growth and ripening of all the leaves on the cigar
plant with the proper curing at once is a guarantee for all good
cigars. It will cost no more after you have once got ready to
cure than it does the present wasteful way.

52

The white vein is more prominent in seasons of abundant
rains. ‘The stalk and stem and veins grow rapidly, and a larger
size in a wet season than ina dry one. ‘The sap passages are both
large and numerous and are hardened to a woody substance.
Excessive wet seasons always produce this quality in tobacco
crops. The remedy is in subsoiling and draining, get the roots
of your plants above the water stand of your fields. This can be
done by running furrows with a turning plow between the rows
early in the season and turning them back again when the dry
season comes. In cigar leaf the sure remedy is curing the leaf
separate from the stalk, it is the only proper way to cure any
tobacco and especially fillers and wrappers for cigars. The white
vein in the crop of eighteen ninety-one will cost planters as much
money as it would to have cured this crop by artificial heat. The
extra weight and quality of tobacco would have more than paid
the cost of the curing apparatus for the crop in Pennsylvania,
Connecticut and Wisconsin. The difference between the two
methods of curing the common Virginia leaf as shown by the
North Carolina Experiment Station gives the leaf cure forty-
one dollars per acre advantage. The difference where the white
stem has to be contended with would be far greater.

oe

53

CHAPTER 2eVi.
PRIZE HOUSES.

The Prize houses, so-called, are a distinctive and very costly
feature of every loose leaf market There is no question about
their being a necessity so long as men cure their tobacco leaves
on the stalk and let them remain on the stalk until they find
‘time or inclination to strip them off. These redrying or prize
houses are not only very costly but they are wholly unneces-
sary; wrong in their conception, wrong in theory, and wrong in
practice. They are no more a necessity in a tobacco market
than a redrying house for corn, or wheat, or oats, in a grain
market. If the farmer did not dry his corn before he brought
it to the corn merchant then the corn dealer would need a dry
house. If tobacco leaves are stripped from the stalk and cured
they must, of necessity, be closely bulked at once. The bulk
contains only what the barn cured at one curing and it is done
in hot or warm weather, a sweat is at once organized in the
small heap; the pile ferments, it is seasoned, and its keeping quali-
ties are secured in the next ten days after curing. It is proof
against the May sweat, that bugaboo of tobacco men. The May
sweat comes to it in September, or any other month when the
conditions of the May sweat are complied with. There is as
much need to hang up a hay stack in the month of May that
has been wintered over, as there is in hanging up a lot of tobacco
cured and bulked in August, after it has lain in bulk two or
three weeks. These great prize houses are filled with swarms
of workmen who must be paid weekly wages, thus adding to the
purchase’ cost of the leaf; the rent of the building or the interest
on the money its cost must also be added to the purchase cost of
the leaf. These sums added together make a large item of ex-
pense and will cut heavily into the profit and loss account of
every leaf dealer in the country. But we don’t stop here with our
expense bills; the leaf dealer buys one hundred pounds and sells
but ninety pounds; every time he buys and sells one dollar’s worth
of tobacco he loses ten cents, by loss of weight, and to this must

54

be added the wages of his prize house men and the rent of his
building. We have handled about one hundred thousand pounds
of leaf tobacco each year for a number of years past, and have
not found need for a prize house nor have we during that time
hung one leaf of tobacco for the purpose of redrying it, nor have
we lost any tobacco by mould or other cause. If tobacco is
cured right and compactly bulked as soon as cured, compact
storage room is all that is necessary either with planter, leaf
dealer or manufacturer. Tobacco is only fit for use after close
storage and while it is hung in the air either with the planter
or in the prize house or factory it is so much time lost, besides
the weight which goes with the consequent and inevitable dis-
sipation of the oil While being exposed to the air. As before
said, the stalk draws organic matter of the highest importance
from the leaf while in the process of curing. Wire cured tobacco
comes in condition quicker than stalk cure in the same tempera-
ture or degrees of moisture. This is the universal testimony and
there are good reasons why. The waxy elements are in the leaf
stripped from the stalk that have been extracted from the stalk
cured leaf, and in an atmosphere that will at once limber up a
leaf of this kind, this leaf that is minus this waxy element remains
dry. The leaf that has been cured right has the oil in it, if the
wax has not been melted it is in the cells and. when cured the
leaf feels dry to the touch, if overheated, say one hundred and
sixty or eighty and two hundred as is often done, then a rch
leaf of tobacco feels sticky to the touch, the oil is dissipated or
fried out of the leaf. When the leaf is hung up and as it becomes
dry, the leaf is slow to come in case or limber enough to handle,
and if the moisture in the air is sufficient to limber the leaf it also
has in it sufficient moisture to cause it to mould if placed in bulk,
hence the necessity of redrying houses.

A COO ICY RAC EN

The planters of the State of South Carolina have been grow-
ing tobacco for the last six or seven years. They began with
the “Snow System” and have continued it to the present time.
They have produced about one thousand pounds per acre by

cr

5

taking all the leaves from their plants as they ripen and curing
them. Their crops have been sold at an average of twelve
cents per pound; this has been done during the market year of
1894 on the product of several million pounds.

The Virginia markets during the same year report six cents
per pound, the average price, while less than six hundred pounds
is the crop per acre, as seen by the census reports for the last
twenty years. The difference between six cents per pound with
six hundred pounds per acre, and twelve cents per pound and
one thousand pounds per acre is eighty-four dollars per acre,
or three hundred and thirty-three per cent. in favor of the South
Carolina planters.

Has the Snow process of curing made the difference?

Mr. “ Fairbanks” settled the quantity per acre and the to-
bacco buyer settled the quality of the tobacco. These frosty
facts should be taken into consideration by every person who
plants tobacco in 1895.

CHAPTER CY Tir

SPEGIBICATIONS

FOR BUILDING A “MODERN TOBACCO BARN” 16X20 FEET INSIDE
MEASURE AND 20 FEET HIGH.

Select a hill-side with a slope of about 2% inches to the foot.
Commencing at the lower side, dig an excavation 16x20 feet into
the hill-side. This will bring the upper side about 5% feet from
the surface, the floor being level. Then dig a trench around
the four sides of the excavation, on the inside, one foot wide, of
the same depth. Fill it with small cobble stones or coarse
gravel to serve as a foundation and to act as a drain. On top
of the stone or gravel build an 8-inch wall of good brick or
stone with strong lime mortar. The wall should be 5% feet high
on the four sides, level on top, making a basement. In the
lower or exposed side of the wall leave an opening for the door,
in the center of the wall. The opening should be 5 feet high
and 2% feet wide. Leave openings on each side of the door 3
inches from the ground and 22 inches from the side walls,
through which the ends of the stoves may project far enough
to be within 4 inches of the outside face of the wall. The doors
of the stoves open outwards and the fuel is fed from the out-
side. Set the stoves three inches above the ground floor of the
basement. Cover the stoves with brick arches extending 2 feet
beyond the rear ends of the stoves, and leaving an air space of
6 inches above and on each side of the stoves, forming jackets,
the rear ends of the jackets to be left open. Directly over the
stove doors and under the line or crown of the arches, leave
openings in the wall 2x8 inches, the longer line horizontal.
These are to admit fresh air as needed around the stove and
within the arch. Covers to fit them regulate the quantity of air
as required. In addition to these openings, two others are left,

57;

one alongside each stove 10 inches square and with the tops level
with the surface outside. Through these openings conduits made
of one inch oak plank to inches wide for the top and bottom,
and & for the sides, project and are extended inside the base-
ment its whole length, sunk even with the top of the earth floor.
Provide these conduits each with four holes 10 inches long and
4 inches wide through the cover, with sliding covers. These are
to allow cool air to be admitted to the basement independent
of what is let in through the open arches. This completes the
basement. The chimneys as illustrated in the “interior of base-
ment” can be improved upon by extending the return flues to
the outside of basement, through the wall, and build the chimney
on the outside, to the height of the basement wall, where the
terra cotta can be placed and clamped to the outside of the gable
end of the barn as easify as on the inside, or run the chimney
of brick all the way up which will leave the entire interior space
in the tobacco room clear for the curing of the leaf. Heretofore
the terra cotta have been put up inside, where they have occu-
pied space that was valuable to the curer.

The barn superstructure is built as follows: Sills 4x6 inches
are framed and set on the walls, the 4-inch side resting on the
walls. Set the joists and lay the floor strips 34 by 14 inches,
leaving open space I+ inches between each of them, except those
within 2 feet of the walls on three sides. Here the floor is closely
laid. The floor is open in strips at the door end of the build-
ing. Set the studding exactly 18 inches apart. Set the rafters
one-third pitch, make the sheeting of good square-edged planks.
Shingle the roof. In the sheeting and shingles leave an opening
15 feet long and 8 inches wide at the peak of the roof for the
ventilator, which is made and shipped by us. Sheathing paper
is nailed on the joists and the whole is ceiled. Each pair of
rafters must have collar or wind beams made of plank 6 inches
wide and 14 inches thick, fastened securely at the foot 6 inches
above the plates. The first set of scaffold beams is set 7 feet
from the floor on two sides and one end of the building. “The
next set is set 6 feet above the first. The window frames are
for two 6 light 10x12 glass. The frames are set one in each
end 8 feet from the floor. The stanchions will be set by us in
all cases. The conduits above mentioned when preferred.

58

BILL OF FRAMING FOR MODERN BARN.

We append below detailed specifications, measurements, etc.,
of the Modern Barn. The planter can usually buy the main
materials, except perhaps the proper shaped stoves and chim-
neys, near home. What are put down as “Inside Fixtures”
we supply ourselves. They are all patented, not only in them-
selves, but their application to the barn; and without them the
barn is of no value for curing tobacco. They are all officially
stamped, and any person caught imitating and using them, or
selling them, will be promptly prosecuted. The planter can
build the barn and we will supply the Inside Fixtures, or we can
supply all the materials and send experienced men to erect and
put it into perfect operation. In the latter case, to cover all out-.
lays, the barn will cost from $475 to $550, depending on distance,
local conveniences, etc.

20X16 FEET INSIDE MEASUREMENT.

25Sills AxO— 20 Teet lon tise, oe. be are aye 3 ae 84 feet.
e Sills 4xG—17 feet lone... ees s dont oes Ge ae Coa"
TiAsleepers-2x0—-17. 166t: ONG gee see wie See Be cae 208 =
4 Corner Posts 4x6 inches—2o feet long............ TOO" *)
4 Door and Window Posts 4x4—20 feet............ TOS: =
Aa Stuiddirie: 2x4—20 feet longs. ica+ te eames oo cles 572
22 Plates: 2k OI ateet Tons saat ee Mee. week Roos wae 28
2 F lates 2xq—17 feet lone con5 Soe 30493 oy eens 22
& Pieces a4x6—16 feet lone ooec ney tow hg dees oe SO =,
an Katters 2sA—12 feet 1ONGs.4 22 ea See Se 200 wy
Sileetine- Ix Le Inches hs... cena es ene ge eae ee ASO
Ploorine’ 1x63. Inches: spatan«ceete oe pag ecunees 200"
TOA ce ahi Pt eek ters ag ee eee ee
DRESSED LUMBER
Drop Si

ding 1x8 inches

Ceiling 3x8 ¢ " —2000 “
Corner Boards 1x4—8o feet.
Ventilator complete.

Scaffold pile gee feet.

Scaffolds 1x9—225 feet.

Paper ieee ee

4000 Shingles.

59

DOOR FRAMES, ETC.

Door Frame 3x6 feet.
Door 3x6 feet.

Hinges and Lock.

Nails for entire building.

2 Window Frames and Sash—8 lights glazed—1ox12z2.

INSIDE FIXTURES.

ets Stanchions.

NO
NY

et Pulleys, Drums, etc.
Baskets.

BASEMENT.
4300 Brick Wall, 54 feet high.
2 Stoves 17x24 inches x 4 feet.
Flues for stoves in basement.
Terra-Cotta Chimneys, 27 feet high.
Conduits for basement—120 feet.
Door and Frame.

Four or four and one-half feet, seven wire Sticks for the log
barn, to use on the tier-poles.

60

CHAP TERSXGVIE:

WHAT LEADING PLANTERS SAY ABOUT-SNOWS
MODERN TOBACCO BARN AND: STICKS:

THE SNOW STICK UNEQUALLED.

\

THE TESTIMONY OF TWO YEARS.

THE ‘SNOW BARN” AND STICK UNEQUALLED—IT HAS EVERY
REQUISITE NECESSARY TO YIELD THE LARGEST PROFIT
TO THE TOBACCO PLANTER.

Mr. F. M. Rogers, of Florence, S. C., wrote as follows in 1890:

“ As before stated, I have tried myself or seen tried nearly all
the methods of hanging the leaves—namely, horizontally, which
is too tedious; stringing with the needle and twine, just as objec-
tionable, besides running the leaves too close together, unless
pains are taken to separate each leaf, which kills too much time;
next, rubber bands, which is the most expeditious way to fill a
barn, but by far in the most objectionable condition to have it,
from the fact that you have it pressed tightly together—especially
is this the case when the tobacco wilts. There is little chance of
heat getting between the leaves at the proper time; you can make |
no calculation. The circulation of heated air passes up through
the opening between the sticks, where it will benefit only the out-
side leaves; very little going between them, where it is chiefly
needed. You are apt to cure it too green or yellow. Even if
you should strike it right, it cures a dingy, dull reddish color,
rather than the clear yellow which is the aim of every curer to

61

obtain. The stem will be hard to kill out, will have to continue
on the leaf too long, and run the risk of further damaging its
color and detract from its weight. It is poor economy to save a
dollar or so in filling a barn and lose $30 or $40 by imperfect
curing.

“The Snow Stick I have found satisfactory in every way.
Barns can be quickly filled; each leaf is properly spaced; the ven
tilation is equalized in every way. More tobacco can be suc-
cessfully cured in one barn than when strung in any other way.
I have not space to go into minute explanation of its merits, but
suffice it to say that it is the best arrangement on which to hang
tobacco within my knowledge. In a word, the Snow Stick is
unequalled.”

In 1890, Mr. Rogers writes thus:
Capt. W. H. Snow, High Point, N. C.

Dear Sir:—Yours of the 4th inst. at hand. I am a stronger
advocate of tobacco cured off the stalk than ever. That the leaf
cured in this way is far superior, | am fully convinced, from
handling it in our manufacturing business during the last few
months. For the farmer, it is the way to get the greatest profit
from an acre, because it can be saved and cured better; and that
it is heavier, | know from experience.

Yours truly,
Pav ROGERS: |r.

DOUBLE SE ST EViG@ Nive
A YIELD OF AT LEAST ONE THIRD MORE BY THE “‘SNOW TOBACCO
STICK ’—FIFTY-THREE DOLLARS PER ACRE FROM PRIM-
INGS—$340.01 PER ACRE REALIZED.

Early in 1890,° Mr. L. F. Lucas, of Lucama, North Carolina,
wrote:

Capt. W. H. Snow, High Point, N. C.

Dear Sir:—I cured all my crop of tobacco last year (twenty-five
acres) on the Snow Tobacco Stick, and think that my yield was
at least one-third more than it would have been if I had cultivated*
and cured the old way, stalk and all together. I commenced

62

priming and curing on July oth. In this priming I did not get
the lower leaves off so as to properly plow and hill my tobacco.
When I took this tobacco out of the barn I shipped it to the Hender-
son market (Cooper’s). Mr. Cooper had it graded, and sold it
July 29th for 10 cents, 30 cents, 65 cents, 41 cents, and II cents,
making an average, with trash out, of about $23, and netting one
about $23 per acre. I primed and worked out my tobacco again
about July 26, with better results—about $30 per acre. My tobacco
was then a full growing crop, and I with $53 per acre in my
pocket or paid to my creditors. My neighbors all used the Snow
Sticks, and got good prices for their tobacco, and more money
per acre than those who did not use the Snow Stick. I sold
tobacco cured on the Snow Stick for $2 per pound. I think
each and every tobacco farmer should have a set of the Snow
Sticks for each barn that he may have. I would recommend this
even to those who will not part from the old method of curing
the stalk, as they could make a net saving of enough tobacco that
they would otherwise throw away to buy half a dozen sets of
Snow Sticks, and I am sure that I know of no other stick on the
market that I would have as a gratis when I could get the Snow
Stick at the price he asks for it. Our poeple are preparing for
a large crop this year, and I am sure you will sell a set of your
sticks for each new barn going up in this section, where their
merits have been so well tested, and so much saved that has here-
tofore been thrown away—yes, enough to pay the expenses of
the tobacco crop, and that would otherwise be cropped off and
thrown on the ground. Hoping you will send your agent
around to sell more sticks in this section, in time enough for the
farmers to save all their primings, I am,

| Yours very truly, Lt UCAS:

Note——With this letter the warehouse receipts were sent us.

On the 2d inst. Mr. Lucas wrote thus:

Capt. W. H. Snow, Superintendent Modern Tobacco Barn Co.

Dear Sir:—I have not heard the first complaint from any one
who used the Snow Tobacco Stick this year. Three-fourths of
the farmers used them this year in this section, and say that they
‘will want more next year. I know of one man who turned to the
stalk tobacco cure this year, but says now that he never expects

63

to cure another stalk. On November 20, 1890, I sold one curing
at T. N. Jones & Co.’s warehouse, Raleigh, for $340.01 net. This
curing was made on the Snow Stick, and was a piece of tobacco
that I took all off the stalk at one time, except one priming, and
worked up a larger proportion of heavy wrappers than any curing
I ever saw. The result was as follows:

oz POUMCS sUIPS.s At Os sCOMESI er. © ofa). cnelcncet Oe $19 63
Gawpopnadsr uesmal Sis CONS. tes sys victor 14 62
HOO? poundse Wrappers, at $28 net? . 6... ee. 305 76
| O nT We eRe yee Anne ane $340 OI

This curing, as you see, weighed 1344 pounds, and | am sure
that I will have 500 pounds more on the same acre, and it will
bring somewhere near $500 per acre at the present low price of
mahogany wrappers. If heavy wrappers were worth now what
they were last year in February, the one curing would have sold
for $500. I will send you a few pounds of heavy wrappers that
were cured on the Snow Stick, to put on exhibition at your
office.

Wishing you much success in manufacturing the Snow Sticks,
Dixie Darling, etc., at your new site in Oxford, I am yours,

Very truly, jG ceed Gal (Gvebsy

INGONTESTABLE-EVIDENCE.

Cartersville, Va., March roth.
Correspondence Southern Tobacconist.

Messrs. Editors:—It is a singular fact that the majority of
mankind resist change, innovation, what we call progress; never-
theless, the world moves on and advances, otherwise we would
still live in the dark ages, as possibly we do, in ignorance of the
fact, by comparison with what is to come after us.

After all, it is probably best for mankind and the world that we
do not accept new things until they have proved themselves un-
der the crucial test of time to be worthy of acceptance, else the
world would move too fast. This resistance to progress acts as
a governor to keep the machinery regulated.

No class of persons are as slow to adopt new things as tobacco
planters. Many of them are content to remain in the ruts of two

64

centuries, where they will probably die, leaving them and nothing
else as a legacy to posterity.

Under the head of “ Progress Among the New Things in To-
bacco Culture,” I wish to call your attention to what is known as
“ Leaf Curing,” that is, beginning at the bottom and gathering
the good leaves, from two to four at a time, as they mature and
are ready for curing.

Tobacco should always be planted as early as possible and on
quick, rich soil, with plenty of vegetable mould and manure of
some kind in the land. With a favorable season, you can begin to
gather the leaves in from sixty to seventy days. This should be
done in baskets prepared for the purpose, and with care not to
bruise. They are carried to the house and then taken from the
baskets and hung on sticks or strings. By far the best device that
I know of being the Snow Stick, described in your journal; indeed,
I do not see how this can be improved on. In a week or two
these same plants will be ready for another gathering of leaves,
and so on to the end of the season.

Now, Mr. Editor, I do not speak of this matter from hearsay
or reading, but from actual trial and experience. After a thor-
ough test of it during the past curing season, I unhesitatingly
pronounce it the best method I have ever seen, tried or heard of
for housing tobacco. It cures better and more quickly. The
quality of the leaf is better. You can begin by the 15th of July
to house your crop, and instead of having to crowd this work into
a very short time, as is usual, you have almost the entire summer
for it. You will make more pounds to the acre than you can
possibly do by the old process. You will not decrease the weight
of the leaf. You will reduce the risk of loss from frost to a mini-
mum. You will give employment to a class of labor heretofore
unemployed.

Without doubt this is a departure from old methods in the line
of progress; it is a great change, the new process that will give
us a much higher grade of tobacco. I cannot too strongly urge
my brother planters not to pass it by, but to look into it, study
it, and you will adopt it. You cannot afford to be left by all
other sections in the improvements that are taking place, in the
varieties, the culture, and the methods of handling and curing
this staple crop.

Truly yours, EDUMUND: R.- COGKE:

65

TESTIMONY OF MR. PRICE.

In 1889 Mr. J. V. Price, of Hogan, N. C., wrote as follows:

Hogan, N. C., November 18, 1889.

Capt. W. H. Snow:

ist. Your plan has saved tobacco for me which otherwise
would have been lost, and it brought me more money than the
leaves higher up the stalk.

ad. I saved 3500 pounds that would have been lost, and sold
it at an average of 20 cents per pound. This is a low estimate.

3d. The way is better, because the work is lighter and more
systematic.

4th. It requires one-half less barn room.

5th. It requires much less fuel, and is, I am quite sure, the
correct way to handle tobacco, and I recommend every progres-
sive farmer to give it a fair trial. Yours,

{Ve PRICE,

On December 2d Mr. Price writes as follows of his 1890 crop:

Capt. W. H. Snow, Superintendent Modern Tobacco Barn Co.,

Eheh Point. N>.C.

Dear Sir:—The Snow Barn and Sticks have come to stay in
this neighborhood, and no intelligent man having once tried your
process would ever return to the old stalk cure. Below I give
you particulars of my crop, etc. I planted 90 acres, got a good
stand and all topped by July 15th. Commenced priming same
date; cured 20,000 potnds cutters and smokers, which will bring
an average of 15 cents, most of them being sold at this date. By
the old method these would have been thrown away. The bal-
ance of the crop was cured as soon as the cutters were off; got
35,000 pounds of No. 1 wrappers and fillers; remainder unfortu-
nately got over-ripe and lost in body and texture. Your Barn,
however, came to the rescue, and the 15,000 showed up fairly
well—much better than I could have done by curing on the
stalk. The 35,000 pounds is as good rich tobacco as was ever
grown in North Carolina, or anywhere else; the 15,000 pounds
would have been the same, but for my misfortune in having only
two instead of three barns. I cured it all in two Snow Barns

66

and nine log barrs on the Snow Stick. To have cured the old
way would require thirty log barns. I saved 100 cords of wood,
and gained, I am quite sure, 10,000 pounds of tobacco by using
your sticks. Would have gained more had I had two more
Modern Barns. The advantage of your process lies in its being
more systematic, a uniform cure is always certain, and the making
of more distinct types. It generates a pride and desire to do bet-
ter and learn more about tobacco. Knowing what I do now, I
could without any trouble have cured my crop in three following
distinct types: smokers and cutters, rich fillers, and mahogany
wrappers. By taking the leaves at the proper time, no inferior
or nondescript tobacco will be raised or cured by your process.

To show you that I feel confident of the success of your pro-
cess, my brother and I will next year plant 150 acres in tobacco,
and will build 12 more barns on the Snow plan. With our expe-
rience, we know we can handle it without any trouble. I would
not now be afraid to plant 500 acres, had I the capital.

Wishing you every success,

Yours truly, J. Ve. PRIGE.

THE GRANDEST DISCOVERY OF THIS
AGRICULTURAL AGE.

Richmond, Va., November 17, 18go.
W. H. Snow, Esq., High Point, N. C.

My Dear Sir:—You ask my opinion of the * Snow Barn” pro-
cess of curing tobacco by flues, as compared with the old way.

I will answer you by saying just as the scythe and cradle was
superior to the old hand sickle, and at last the McCormack
reaper was superior to them all in point of economy in saving all
kinds of grains over the old way, the “Snow Barn” is relatively
as far ahead of the old mode of curing tobacco, just as the McCor-
mack reaper opened up markets for our wheat and flour the
world over, making it possible to supply the world with bread,
a thing that would have been impossible by the old method of
harvesting. The new mode of flue curing “bright” by Snow’s
process will revolutionize the tastes of tobacco consumers the
world over, by making it possible to furnish the mild, silky
cutter, smoker and filler to fill a want that could not possibly be
filled through the old way of curing.

67

I will sum up the advantages of * Snow’s” process as follows:
It cures tobacco as it ripens, always catching the leaf in its best
condition for curing; neither too ripe nor too green, and always
curing bright, regardless of adverse seasons.

This mode insures early summer temperature cures, and con-
sequently yellow cure, while the old way is hazardous at best and
under the most favored conditions.

All manufacturers are aware of the great improvement brought
about by depriving the leaf of the main stem before sweating it
sweet; that is the secret of St. James Parish Perique tobacco
being so vastly superior to other kinds, for the mid rib is taken
out while it is semi-green and before the leaf has time to absorb
its objectionable flavors, and hence the Perique is faultless as a
smoke of high and distinctive flavor.

Mr. Snow correspondingly improves the quality of the leaf by
stripping it from the stalk, and if he could go further and deprive
it of the mid rib, its quality would be still further enriched,—so
much for quality.

Now for economy. While the stalk men are waiting for the
top leaves to get ripe and the rest of the plant to get over-ripe
and otherwise deteriorate, the Snow economist is gathering and
curing his by twos and fours. When the stalk man is ready to
cut his, Snow has his all in the barn, beautifully cured; or, which
is more probable, has it marketed and the money in his pocket,
say just four and a-half months after planting, leaving possibly
two top leaves on the stalk, to be taken when they fully granulate
in the late chilly fall, to supply the market with the sweet meaty
fillers and rich mahogany wrappers.

Snow’s tobacco is safe—yes, safe every year; no frost scare has
forced him to cut it green, and he has no trouble or anxiety with
low frost temperature in curing, no miss-cures, no vexation in
stripping and assorting by unskilled hands, for nature assorted
his for him in its order of ripening. All this is the economy side.

Now, with Snow’s Barn, Burley tobacco, new ground or old
sod land tobacco will make the finest cigarette and pipe stock
(resembling the Turkish tobacco in flavor), the best in the world
for this exclusive purpose, and adding from 300 to 500 per cent.
to its market value over the air-cured product of Kentucky. It
can all be cured fancy brights. Old ground Burley will make
the finest export stock, without an equal in mildness, color, tex-

68

ture and quality combined. It will force a market for itself in
countries which our Virginia and North Carolina brights have
never been able to reach on account of the uncertainty of our
annual yields, the mishaps of our cures and the almost interdic-
tory price it demands in years of scarcity. By the Snow process
we can always furnish foreigners with matchless cures every year,
bad crop years and good years alike—since all Burley cures yel-
low by flues.

We have a lot of primings, usually left on the stalk in the
field by Kentucky planters, cured by Snow’s Barn from the crop of
Wm. Z. Thomson, Georgetown, Ky., that is worth from $20 to $25
per 100, as Cutters, on our market to-day. Had the whole crop
been cured by flues it would, with the same successful manage-
ment, have realized him $30 to $40 crop round.

In conclusion we regard the Snow Barn the grandest discovery
of this agricultural age. Respectfully,

[Signed] S. PS CARR?

FORTY YEARS’ EXPERIENCE.

Hyco, Va., November 24th, 1890.
Capt. W. H. Snow, High Point, N. C.

My Dear Sir:—An experience of forty years in raising every
class of tobacco grown in the United States enables me to say
that the Modern Tobacco Barn, in all its appurtenances and fix-
tures, meets every requirement for curing tobacco better than any
that has ever yet been devised, for it is constructed on scientific
principles in applying artificial heat in drying the tobacco leaf on
the most approved method, as regards safety, economy and cer-
tainty in fixing the color and preserving the quality. And it is
surely destined to come into use for curing all the classes and
types of tobacco, when its merits and capabilities shall become
known.

It will require time, however, to bring it into general use
among a class of farmers who heretofore have clung tenaciously
to old methods, very many of whom look with suspicion and
prejudice upon anything new and progressive in any department
of tobacco raising. I know this prejudice to exist, for I have
been combating it for 20 years, in efforts to introduce newer and

69

better varieties for the several classes and types of tobacco raised
in this country. But there are unmistakable evidences that the
spirit of improvement is being aroused, for greater progress has
been made in the tobacco planting industry during the past de-
cade than in the 50 years previous.

The Snow Barn is sure to win confidence and favor after a
fair trial, because it meets the requirements of progressive to-
bacco farming for the finest class of tobacco, as no other barn
has ever done. It came to fill more than one desired want, and
has come to stay, and, like every other useful invention, it is des-
tined to be improved upon through supplemental invention in
the direction of perfection, until no planter can afford to engage
in tobacco planting without availing himself of the use of the
best methods of curing his crops.

Yours very truly,
Re Le RAGEAND,:

The following, from the pen of Mr. J. B. Smith, of Milton,
North Carolina, will be read with interest and profit. It was
originally published in the Southern Tobacco Journal:

“As I have had, perhaps more experience in the process of,
stripping leaves from the stalk in the field than any other planter,
I have been requested to prepare an article for the benefit of our
farmers in the Golden Belt of Virginia and North Carolina. I
will say, by way of beginning, that if the object of the tobacco
grower be simply to house his crop in the most expeditious man-
ner, regardless of color and texture, let him adhere to the old
process of cutting the plant. But if the object of the planter be
to realize the greatest profit from an acre of land, at the least
expense, then I unhesitatingly advise him to adopt the “ new pro-
cess” and strip off every leaf of his tobacco, as he will not only se-
cure better color and texture, but also superior flavor and greater
weight. Now, right here, Mr. Editor, while conceding the su-
periority as to the color, ninety-nine out of a hundred farmers
who have never tried the new process will declare that it is not
true about the increase of weight. And yet I am confident that
I could convince the most incredulous and ignorant farmer in
either State of the truth of the assertion, if I could have him
come and see with his own eyes and feel with his own fingers. I

7O

can show him tobacco grown on new ground, without the use of
a pound of fertilizer, one stick of which, with only 32 leaves, just
as cured, will weigh 1 pound 6 ounces. Now, this is equivalent
to over a pound to 4 plants, while from a whole barn taken from
the same land and cured on the stalk I challenge any one to find
five stalks the leaves from which will weigh as much—or, better
still, to pick 50 leaves out of that barn that will weigh as much.
And the color and texture of the barn-cured on the stalk does
not compare with the one pulled off, although it was the picked
barn of my crop and cured by a man hired at a big price, in order
to make a fair test, who, upon looking at the tobacco, was confi-
dent he could equal my barn of leaves, but upon finishing the
curing, declared that no living man could cure that tobacco as
well on the stalk as if the leaves were pulled off, and further said
he never intended to cut another plant of tobacco for himself.
But apart from ocular demonstration, [ think I can convince
every intelligent person that tobacco cured off the stalk 1s
heavier. Every farmer knows that fodder pulled off and cured is
heavier and more nutritious than when the stalk is cut and the
blades permitted to cure on it. Because it is one of the laws of
nature that applies to all animal as well as plant existence, “ for
the body, in the last struggle for existence, to draw sustenance
“from its extremities.” And the tobacco plant is no exception to
this rule. As soon as the stalk is severed this struggle begins;
the stalk drawing sustenance from the leaves, or, as the tobacco-
curer expresses it, “the sap is driven in the process of curing
from the tip of the leaf upwards through the fibres and stem into
the stalk.” By the process of stripping the leaves, all of this
drainage is prevented, for in less than five minutes after a leaf is
broken off, a gum exudes from the stem and hermetically seals
the pores in the butt end of the stem, and in the curing process
all of the oils are retained in the leaf, which increases its weight
and elasticity. I also find the stem and fibres are very much
smaller. And the leaf when cured, instead of possessing a glued
appearance, has a soft, spongy look, and feels like kid skin.

IT will now briefly enumerate some of the most important
advantages the new process has over the old:—

1st. The planter can begin to house his crop from two to four
weeks earlier.
2d. Everything is saved and there is no loss by “firing on the
hill.” .

il

3d. As the lower leaves are pulled off, those left on the stalk
ripen up and yellow more rapidly, which enables the planter to
get in his crop earlier in the season.

4th. Tobacco can be cured a more uniform color.

5th. Less fuel will be required.

6th. The risk of setting fire to the barn will be greatly lessened.

7th. The tobacco can be stored in a much smaller space, and
with no danger of losing color, or of mould.

8th. By this process enough leaves, which are lost by the old
process, will be saved to pay for the fertilizer necessary to grow
_the crop, also to pay for all extra labor needed in housing the
same.

oth. It will help to solve the problem of over-production,
by grading up the tobacco in our section so as to place us above
the competition of those sections which grow low grades of
tobacco, which in the past few years has proved so detrimental
to our pockets.

Round Peak: N- C.,.September 12; 1890.

Capt. W. Ee Snow. sigh yPoimt N.C

Dear Sir:—I have cured two barns of tobacco on your sticks,
and I am well pleased with them. The most tobacco raisers in
my settlement have been to see me curing, and will all want your
sticks to cure their next year’s crop. I will be able to sell to all
the tobacco raisers in my section next year. We have got all
our lugs cured, the finest lugs [ ever saw. Yours truly,

WILLIAM GOLDING.

Clover Depot, Va., November 1, 1890.

Capt. W. H. Snow, High Point, N. C.

My Dear Sir:—Would say in regard to your Wire Sticks that
I am more than pleased with the result of them. I made the
finest crop of tobacco I ever made in my life this year, cured
almost my entire crop on your Wire Sticks, and would have
cured every leaf on them had I had sticks enough. Would not
be without them for double the cost of them. Think I will
realize three hundred dollars per acre for a large portion of my
crop. Would advise all who want to make a fine article of bright
tobacco to use Snow’s Wire Sticks. They are the best on the
market. I am yours truly,

A. V. WOMACK.

WZ

TESTIMONY TO BE WEIGHED.

THE COST, OF THE BARN PAID FOR: BYeTWO/Giie
INGS OF PRIMINGS THAT HAD BEEN THROWN
AWAY.

Oxford, N. C., July 24, 1890.
Modern Tobacco Barn Co., High Point, N. C.

Prejudiced as I was against the Snow Barn before I knew its
merits, I make haste to congratulate you on the wonderful suc-
cess of my first curing in the barn built by you for me. Your
builder finished it on last Saturday night. On Monday it was
filled with priming leaves. They have been taken out to-day.
The cure is perfect. I will fill the barn again on Monday. The
two curings of leaves that I have for years thrown away will
more than pay the cost of the barn.

ieMe CURRER,

73

McCray, N. C., January 16, 1890.

By using the Snow Sticks in log barns—

Ist. We saved about 1200 pounds of tobacco that we consider
would have been wasted—about $200 worth. That is what we
saved in one year and what it brought.

2d. The labor is a good deal less getting a pound of tobacco
from the field into market.

3d. We can cure a crop of tobacco by the new plan in one-half
the barn room that it would take to cure it in the old way.

4th. It don’t take any more than one-half the fuel it would take
to cure stalk and all. It is an improvement that we can cheer-

fully recommend to our brother farmers.
Your friends, je deetnG. Ale KEN G,

Home, Green Co., Tenn., November 28, 1890.
Capt. W. H. Snow:

I was born and raised in Southwest Virginia. Raised and
cured tobacco for sixteen years on the stalk. I moved to Green
county, Tenn.; there I found the model of the Snow Stick. I
took it in study, and made my order. The sticks being delayed
by railroad caused me to cure five barns by the old process;
I then received them in time to cure two barns. After curing the
first barn, I never was better pleased in my life. Cures finer and
with less labor and less fuel, and cures a great deal more in a
barn. I think it much heavier and better than the tobacco cured
the old way. This is my experience in one year’s usage. As
for my experience, I never expect to cure any other way, only on
the Snow Stick. Nine hands—men, women and children—are
sufficient to fill a 20-foot barn in a day.

I will give you the beauty of this process: Ist. You save your
primings and cure them. 2d. You then save your lugs, and so
on till you are done curing. You bulk your tobacco as you cure
it, and when you are done curing you are done grading; and,
moreover, I am satisfied an industrious farmer can save enough
primings the first year to save fertilizer and other expenses. By
removing the lower leaves the tobacco ripens and thickens up
faster; the reason why, because it gets more air.

Brother farmers, I will say this to you: If you will take hold

and try those sticks you will never use any other.
Yours truly, J@ERN Sor E Eye

74

The cashier of the First National Bank, Winston, N. C., writes:

February 26, 189go.

I have used the Snow Tobacco Stick in log barn during the
season. I had about six acres in tobacco, and realized at the
warehouse in Winston, where I sold my tobacco, $799. I think
the device made for me not less than $200. One of its great
advantages over the old method of curing tobacco is, that by its
use, the early leaves of the crop are saved, and in addition to this,
when the crop is all housed it is finished and ready for market,
saving time and labor in the way of stripping the dried or cured
tobacco on the stalk.

J. W. ALSPAUIGEE

FROM FORSYTHE COUNTY.

Winston, N. C., November 19, 1880.
Mr. W. H. Snow:

I am well pleased with the Modern Tobacco Barn bought of
you, and would not be without it for twice its cost. I saved all
my priming leaves, cured them up nicely, and sold them for a
fair price early in the season—the money coming in nicely to pay
expenses of saving the remainder of the crop. By handling the
tobacco in your baskets the leaves are not bruised, and are saved
in better condition than when handled on the stalk. Also, it does
not require nearly as much wood or barn room to cure a crop as
in the old way. The barn has proven very satisfactory to me,
and I can heartily recommend it to others.

Very truly yours, S. A. OGBURN.

WOULDN’T TAKE $1000 FOR IT.

I have used Captain Snow’s Modern Barn and am exceedingly
well pleased with it. I saved plenty of primings this year to fully
pay for the barn. This tobacco I have always thrown away, and
it was never worth anything to me. The cures [ have made in
the Snow Barn this year are far ahead of anything I ever cured
in the old barns. I think the tobacco is worth nearly as much
again. I have been growing tobacco about 35 years, and the
Snow Barn is by far the best thing to cure tobacco in I ever saw.

Ey

75

I do think that tobacco cured in this barn will alwavs average
fully one-third more than in the old way. I would not be with-
out the barn for $1000 if I could not get another. I like it, am
pleased in every way, and expect to use it as long as I raise
tobacco. WM. MOTLEY.
Chatham, Pittsylvania Co., Va.

WONDERED STEPS VAT KARLY CURING.

The following testimonials show what the Snow Barn can do
in the way of early curings:
Oxtord, N; C;, June 20; 1800:
Dear Sir:—We sold Wednesday, June i8th, a shipment of new
crop tobacco from L. F. Lucas, of Wilson Co., this State, at an
average of $46.10 per hundred. Mr. Lucas writes us that this
tobacco was planted between April 25th and May Ist, 18go,
primed off about June oth, and sold as above. This beats any-
thing ever accomplished in the cultivation, curing and sale of
bright tobacco. As Mr. Lucas used your patent stick, which was
a prominent factor in accomplishing this wonderful result, we
take pleasure in sending you this sale. With best wishes,
Yours truly, WAVNS co GREGORY.

Summerfield, N. C., November 12, 1880.
Capt. W. H. Snow:

I would say that I have used the Snow Sticks in my log barns
for two years, and after calculation find that I have saved 225
pounds of tobacco per acre that I had formerly been throwing
away or losing entirely by the old plan of curing on the stalk.
I have saved and sold my first primings for the two seasons at an
average of $15.75 per acre, which I consider clear profit. For
my second primings last year I received $20 per hundred, which
have been (by the old method of curing) my bottom leaves or
trash lugs, that now sell at 4 or 5 cents per pound.

The labor of getting a pound of tobacco from the field to the
barn is less by the new plan, as the work is made lighter by leav-
ing the stalks on the hills. I also find that it takes only half as
much barn room and half the quantity of fuel to cure a crop by
the new plan. I am pleased with and heartily recommend the
new plan as an improvement that my brother farmers should
adopt. Yeurs truly, JeeVie MWeMICH AIL:

76

AN-EXPERTS TESTIMONY

To Those Interested:

I have been asked to give my opinion upon the practical mode
of the process of curing tobacco with the Snow Stick, or more
commonly known as the wire process. I preface my remarks by
saying I have been in tobacco, have handled and been intimately
associated with this great staple all my life, and have watched
closely every new device that has had for its object the improve-
ment and lifting the burden off the shoulders of the producer,
who had it to bear.

I know that it don’t take a Solomon to say it, but the man who
invents these labor-saving tobacco-curing outfits should be classed
as a benefactor of mankind.

Ist. By the use of the wire stick you can save the bottom
leaves, which would otherwise be lost by firing.

2d. It don’t require experts to gather and string these leaves—
chaps ten years old can do it as well as men.

3d. By taking off the lower leaves as they mature you hasten
the ripening of the plant—this alone is a decided advantage.

4th. The primings, or bottom leaves, thus saved, when cured,
make first and second-class cutters, which, under the old way,
while waiting for the body and top of the plant to get fully
ripe or “grained” for the knife, is lost entirely—all of which
when secured can be cured in your barn with less fuel. But
from observation in this section, I have found in my travels that
fuel is of but second consideration at present, but when you get
regularly into tobacco you will find this item of wood of consid-
erable import, and you would do well to commence in time to
take care of it.

When I read the strong endorsement of the Snow Stick process
by such tobacco men as Major R. L. Ragland, Hyco, Va., and
F. M. Rogers, Jr., Florence, S. C., together with many others, I
could not hesitate to give my full endorsement.

E; M. PACE:

Manager Wilson Tobacco Warehouse.

77

Washington, D. C., June 26th, 1891.
Dear Sir:—I have awakened a good deal of interest in Mary-
land regarding improved methods of cure and culture of to-
bacco, and have not hesitated to recommend your improved
“Modern Barn” and fixtures. It would be well for you to have
an agent in Baltimore at an early day, that the planters may be
supplied with wires, baskets, furnace, etc., ete. You are at lib-
erty to use my name as endorsing your wire leaf system through-
out. Advertise in the county papers of Prince George, Charles,
Calvert, St. Mary’s and Anne Arundel, and I think it will pay
you. Truly yours,
THOS N; CONKAD:
Capt. Snow, High Point, N. C.

Mr. Conrad was the Commissioner of Tobacco for the last
census.

(LAB Or CONC ENS:

SPECIAL NOLICE

PRE PAch tO FOURTH EDI TION

INTRODUCTION

EAP TER =|

(GisUsd aii iee Ul

CHAPTER IJI—Plant beds

CHAPTER IV—Good soil necessary

CHAPTER V—Setting out the crop ;

CHAPTER VI—Worming and cultivating the crop

CHAPTER VII—Cultivation continued

CHAPTER VIII—Topping and suckering

CHAPTER [X—Getting ready to cure

CHAPTER X—Ctring fillers mahogany

CHAPTER XI—Bulking after curing

CHAPTER XII—Experiments showing the comparative
value of curing tobacco upon the stalk, and the Snow
wire leaf cure

CHAPTER XITI—Bad affects of curing on wire stalk

CHAPTER XIV—Cigar leaf .

CHAPTER XV—White vein .

CHAPTER XVI—Prize houses

MCOO EC YIFACT ; ,

CHAPTER XVII—Specifications for paitine a “ Modern
Tobacco Barn” 16x20 feet inside measure and 20 feet
high

BEEIESOE. FRAMING FOR MODERN BARN

CHAPTER XVIII—What leading planters say about Snow’s
Modern Tobacco Barn and Sticks

EESTIMONY TO BE WEIGHED

AN EXPERT’S TESTIMONY

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ie Tea a

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