Tobacco Leaf, Its Culture and Cure, Marketing and Manufacture: A Practical ...
Por Joseph Buckner Killebrew, Herbert Myrick
the hills with a hoe. We have been fortunate enough to obtain a fine photograph of the Bemis transplanter, from which Fig. 23 was engraved, which shows most clearly the modus operandi of this useful machine, which may be used with or without fertilizer attachment. It is such a saver of work, time and money, thai the transplanter is destined to come into universal use
a '« 40 Ft jj
fiO. 31. GROUND PLAN OF MODERN FRAMED BARN SHOWN IN FIGS. 29 AND 30.
When the land is prepared for using this machine, it is only necessary to harrow it until it is finely pulverized, then roll or firm the soil with a planker. It is better for the ground not to be very moist when it is used, as the heavy driving wheels, in that case, compact the soil too much. Where the ground is very loose, or ashy dry, the work will not be so good. A. field laid out in model style for transplanting by machine is shown in Fig. 24.
Time of Transplanting.—When this work'is done by hand at the South, or in the shipping tobacco districts, it is customary to wait for gentle spring rains, or a "season," as it is called, to put the land in moist condition to permit the transfer of the plants from the seed bed to the fields without endangering their vitality. Usually, in the great shipping tobacco districts, the first general planting is done about the 10th to the 20th of May. In the yellow-tobacco districts of eastern North Carolina and South Carolina, tobacco is often set
FIG. 32. ANOTHER STYLE OF FRAME.
in April. If the weather should be seasonable, with gentle showers, drawings from the bed may be made once a week. It is the greatest folly to set out small plants on old land after the first of June, unless the ground is very moist, in the latitude of Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina, After that period, very vigorous, stocky plants must be used. It is more and more becoming the custom among the best growers to have plants enough to set out the entire crop the first "season" that comes after they are large enough.
Some southern planters do not wait for a "season." During the month of May, tobacco plants may be set out in freshly made hills late every afternoon, with fair chances of living. If the dirt is pressed closely to the roots with the fingers, and if the leaves are pulled together over the bud, and the dirt pulled tip around them, 19 out of 20 plants will live and thrive. New lands, when well prepared, may be set out at any time. Very small plants will live on such lands that would perish on old lands. If possible, throughout the great heavy shipping districts in all the States, this crop should be planted not later than the 10th of June, though many will plant as
late as the 1st of July. Such late planting rarely proves satisfactory or profitable. It ought to be remembered that "a bud in May is worth a plant in June." The later the planting is deferred after the 25th of May in Tennessee and Kentucky, the more difficult it is to get a "stand," and the risk of making a good crop increases more and more as the season advances.
This last remark is equally true in setting tobacco for cigar wrappers and fillers at the North. Then the best time to transplant must be governed by circumstances. Between June 5th and 20th is the best time in southern New England, in an ordinary season, also :t> New York and Wisconsin. Earlier planting than June 5th rarely gives as large growth of leaf, or as fine qualities in the cured leaf, or as large a yield per acre, as plants set during the medium season. The plant needs
the most favorable portion of the growing season in which to develop to advantage. The warm nights of early August 'are especially favorable to the production of the crop, and the more advanced settings have so far matured, at this
||0 season, as not to receive the greatest benefits. Again, the condition of the weather during the curing season has much to do with the outcome Fig. 34. End Of Frame 8hown of the crop. Very early toIn Fig. 33. bacco must be housed propor
tionally early, and at a season marked at the North by hot, dry weather, which causes the leaf to dry. rather than cure; and it also runs greater risk of pole sweat. On the other hand, late-set tobacco is liable to be damaged by early frosts; it has the advantage that it doesn't have to contend with the cutworm, which usually disappears early in July. About the 10th of June is usually the best time in New England, New York and Wisconsin, or a week or ten days earlier in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Tobacco will then ripen while the nights are cool, and the leaf will have greater body, character and weight.
In the extreme South, or with certain varieties of tobacco, the time for setting is quite different, as stated in connection with those topics.
CHAPTER IX.
TOBACCO BARNS AND SHEDS.
The gradual improvement in the style, convenience and character of tobacco barns and sheds during the past thirty years is very marked in all the tobacco-growing districts of the United States. It was an unusual thing, at that date, to see any other structure in the heavy-tobacco growing region for the hanging and curing of tobacco, except a pen built with logs, which was often shedded with a hip roof, leaving the sheds open. Fig. 26 gives a good idea of these old-fashioned barns. In the cigar-leaf sections, also, the crop, in early times, was hung to dry and cure in any vacant shed or barn, or unused stalls. But with the progress of the crop, these haphazard arrangements have been superseded by substantial buildings known as tobacco sheds or barns, that are constructed for the sole purpose of hanging and curing tobacco. But it will be seen, from the portions of this work on the curing of the various kinds of leaf, that the perfect structure is yet to be devised, though for its purposes Snow's modern barn is certainly a grea'step in advance.
BARNS FOR HEAVY LEAF AND MANUFACTURING TOBACCO.
The size of' the old log barns in the South varied from twenty to twenty-four feet square on the inside, containing five to six "rooms." A "room" is the vertical space included between two sets of tier poles extending from bottom to top. These tier poles are placed