PREPARATION OF TOBACCO FOR THE MARKET.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3150, 2 August 1881, Page 4

PREPARATION OF TOBACCO FOR THE MARKET.

When ripe the leaves become yellowish green and the web more prominent and thickened. If cut before fully ripe the leaves will not acquire a good color in ouring, and will be liable to rot when packed in hogsheads. Should frost appear tbe plains are destroyed. The plants aro cut near tho ground, and those which have thick, stalks are split to facilitate drying. After the sun has shone on them for some hours the plants are gathered. If removed from the field as soon as cut they would be damaged, •on account of the brittleness of the leaves. They are conveyed to barns or curing houses, the sides of which can be partly opened to the air. Within each barn are stretched across, about 4ft. apart, poles conrieoted by cross pieces called tobacco sticks. There are three stages of these poles and sticks in the barn, besides others in the roof. The plants are hung from the sticks 4 or 5 inches apart, with the points of the leaves downwards, the stalk of the lowest leaf serving as a hook. The temperature of the barn must be tolerably uniform, and excess of moisture got rid of by small smothered flre3 of rotten wood and bark. In a few weeks the tobacco ought to be 'in case ;*■ that is, when the leaves are stretched over the ends of the finger and knuckle, they, should .be elastic and tough, and slightly covered with a ■ glossy kind of moisture. On the first rainy day the leaves .are taken down, and on the ner.t day they are stripped from the stalks. The lower, or ground leaves are generally soiled and torn, and some of the rest are inferior to others. The leaves are therefore sorted into three heaps, and are afterwards made into small bundles and tied together at their thickest ends by means of a small leaf. Each small bundle is called a hand, and at the tied end is rather thicker than a man's thumb. This ' handling 'of tobacco, as it is called, should be performed in damp weather or the leaves will crumble into dust. These hands of tobacco are heaped together on a wooden platform, where they undergo the process of ' sweating ;' this is a slight f-rmentation. When properly done the leaves, if stretched between the fingers, possess a certain elasticity by which the farmer knows them to be 'in case' for packing. The first process in the manufacture called Vepoiilardage, consists in separating the hands of tobacco, rubbing and shaking them to make the leaves come apart, and to get rid of sand, dust, &c. Soiled or mouldy parts of the leaf are cut away with scissors and the leaves are then sorted into different baskets and boxes, according to their quality, and conveyed into an adjoining room and sprinkled with a solution of one part of sea salt in ten of water, just sufficient to make them supple enough for subsequent operations. The stalk is next removed from the leaves. Then follows a third sorting of the leaves. The sorted tobacco may eitber be cut or spun or both. The leaves for cutting are moistened with pure water, or with a weak solution of salt, and when sufficiently moist are fed by hand" into oscillating funnels, through which they pans by compression under a knife arranged very much like the knife of a .haft-cutting machine. After each ascent of the knife the tobacco is moved forward about half a lnx», and the descending knife cuts off that thickness from the protruded end of the mass, and the cut fibres fall into a trough beneath. The cut tobacco is then exposed ,j upon plates of iron heated by steam, pipes; ; the effect of which, assisted by an occasional! rrlling by the hands of the workmen, is to make the fibres curl. When this has been carried far enough, tho tobacco is removed to a heap, where it undergoes a slight fermentation, after which it is spread out and dried at a moderate temperature. In "bird's eye " may be seen among the fibres, transverse sections of a portion of the stalk " Shag " is made of the darkest leaves, with no'admixture of stalk.—Oracle.