This variety is one of the most celebrated grown in the East.[69] It is used exclusively for the manufacture of cigars and cheroots, and supplies India and Spain with a vast quantity of the manufactured article. The plant is a strong, vigorous grower, bearing dark green leaves; coming forward rapidly under the careful culture bestowed upon the plants.[70] After curing, the leaves show a variety of colors ranging from dark brown to light yellow or straw color. The leaf when cured, has a peculiar appearance unlike that of any other tobacco. It is of good body but smooth, and has the appearance of tobacco that has been 'frost-bitten.' The leaf is not as porous as most other tobaccos, and therefore does not as readily ignite, and frequently 'chars' in burning—thus giving it the name of a non-burning tobacco.
The plants are 'set' wide apart, and during the first two months are carefully cultivated, when the top is broken off and the leaves allowed to ripen. In some respects, Manilla tobacco is one of the best varieties of the plant cultivated, and were it not for its non-burning quality, it would have but few rivals among cigar tobaccos.[71] We have thus, at some length, described nearly half of the varieties of tobacco now being cultivated. There are, however, others as well known and of equal value and favor. Some of these are of superior quality and of world-wide repute. Of those described, the varieties grown in the tropics are the most celebrated and of the finest flavor. As when first discovered, the tobaccos of the tropics command the highest prices, and possess qualities not easily transmitted when grown in a temperate clime.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XII.
TOBACCO HOUSES.
The drying houses or sheds for the curing and storing of tobacco are among the most interesting objects to be seen on the tobacco plantation. These sheds vary in size from a small structure capable of holding only a few thousand plants to the immense sheds with sufficient capacity for hanging the products of several acres. In the Connecticut valley, the Southern States, at the West, and in the Philippine Islands these tobacco sheds are often several hundred feet in length, built in the most substantial manner and provided with suitable side doors and ventilators for the free passage of air, and the most perfect system of ventilation. The most substantial and finest tobacco sheds are to be found in the Connecticut valley, which are provided with every convenience for hanging and taking down or "striking" the crop. Many of them are painted and adorned with a cupola, which serves the double purpose of an ornament and a ventilator for the hot air to pass off from the curing and heated plants. Formerly, the tobacco being harvested was hung in barns and sheds, used for storing grain and hay, and better adapted to other purposes than to that of a tobacco shed, where thorough ventilation is necessary to avoid sweat and pole-rot, attending upon the curing of the plants. Of late, tobacco growers, throughout the world, have paid considerable attention to the method of curing, and to erecting more suitable buildings for the purpose. At the South and West, the log tobacco barns are giving way to the more substantial frame buildings, and better facilities are employed for "firing" the tobacco in the sheds. Formerly, the tobacco sheds at the South looked more like the rude huts of the herders on the pampas of South America, than buildings devoted to the curing of tobacco. Tobacco barns and sheds are built of a great variety of material, and in various ways, according to the manner of building where the tobacco is grown. Thus in the Connecticut valley, such sheds or barns are large and commodious frame buildings; at the South and West, many of them are built of logs; in Cuba, of slabs covered with palm leaves or thatched. In Turkey, of stones covered with rough boards, and daubed with mud.
Old Connecticut Tobacco Shed.
In selecting a site for the tobacco shed, not only should its proximity to the tobacco field be considered, but also the ground on which it is to be built. It should always be erected on dry ground, rather than upon moist, so that no dampness may arise and injure the leaves in curing. The tobacco shed should also be built on an elevated spot, so that a free circulation of air may be had, which is hardly possible if built on low ground or among trees or in the woods as at the South. This applies more particularly to sheds where the method of curing is by air-drying instead of by "firing" or by "flues." In New England the strongest timber, as oak, is used for building, as the weight of the plants before fully cured is immense. The shed is braced at every point and generally rests upon stone posts so as to allow a good circulation underneath the building. Poles are used for hanging, either round or sawed, when the plants are hung with twine; when hung on tobacco hooks, laths are used, the hooks attached to the lath; more frequently the plants are strung upon the laths without the aid of hooks, the lath passing through the center of the stalk an inch or two from the end. The doors lengthwise of the building are simply the outside boards hung on hinges, every second or third being chosen according to the ideas of curing entertained by the grower. Some planters are of the opinion that the plants need all the air that can be obtained, and keep the sheds open during both day and night, while others open the doors only now and then—closing during warm days, and during a storm. Sometimes the doors are hung on hinges at the top—opening but partially and not allowing as free circulation as when hung on the sides.