Modern Connecticut Tobacco Shed.
Another building of late has been built by the growers in the Connecticut valley, called a stripping house. This building is frequently attached to the shed or near by so that stripping may be performed during all kinds of weather, without danger of injuring the tobacco, or the health of the stripper. Such buildings however are needed only in tobacco sections where the cold is extreme during the winter, when most of the tobacco is to be stripped. The stripping room or house is provided with a stove, a long table, or elevated platform, in front of the windows, of which there should be several to admit plenty of light, and a number of chairs to accommodate the strippers. On the stove a kettle of water is kept constantly boiling or heated, the ascending steam of which keeps the leaves of tobacco from drying and consequently from cracking or breaking. When in condition for "striking" or taking down, the plants are carried to the stripping-room, and covered with boards and blankets, when the operation called stripping commences. Many of the stripping-rooms are built large enough to contain the cases after the tobacco is packed, thus answering a double purpose.
Stripping Room.
In Virginia and the other tobacco-growing states of the South, the tobacco barn is built altogether different, as the method of curing is by fires or flues instead of air curing. The height of the building is usually twice its width and length. In the center of the smooth earthen floor, is the trench for "firing," while around the sides of the building runs an elevated platform for placing the tobacco leaves in bulk; and, commencing at a safe distance from the trench, up to the top of the building, reach beams stretching across for the reception of the pine laths, from which are suspended the tobacco plants. Many of the tobacco sheds at the South, are built like those of New England, but many log structures are still to be seen and many planters prefer them to those made like other frame buildings. The old Virginia planters of a hundred years ago, built rough log sheds for housing the plants, which afforded little protection from wind and rain, which, in consequence, injured much of the tobacco hanging around the sides of the building. Tatham gives the following description of the "Tobacco house and its variety" in his work on tobacco.
