But since the time of the West India company, we have seldom cured our tobacco in this manner, if it is not for our own use; we now cure it in hands, or bundles of the leaves, which they pack in hogsheads, and deliver it thus in France to the farmers general. In order to cure the tobacco in this manner, they wait till the leaves of the stem are perfectly dry, and in moist, giving weather, they strip the leaves from the stalk, till they have a handful of them, called a hand, or bundle of tobacco, which they tie up with another leaf. These bundles they lay in heaps, in order to sweat them, for which purpose they cover those heaps with blankets, and lay boards or planks over them. But you should take care that the tobacco is not over-heated, and does not take fire, which may easily happen; for which purpose you uncover your heaps from time to time, and give the tobacco air, by spreading it abroad. This you continue to do till you find no more heat in the tobacco; then you pack it in hogsheads, and may transport it any where, without danger either of its heating or rotting.
Footnotes:
[49] This is an advantage that they have in Louisiana over our tobacco planters, who are prohibited by law to cultivate these seconds; the summers are so short, that they do not come to due maturity in our tobacco colonies; whereas in Louisiana the summers are two or three months longer, by which they make two or three crops of tobacco a year upon the same ground, as early as we make one. Add to this, their fresh lands will produce three times as much of that commodity, as our old plantations; which are now worn out with culture, by supplying the whole world almost with tobacco for a hundred and fifty years. Now if their tobacco is worth five and six shillings a pound, as we are told above, or even the tenth part of it, when ours is worth but two pence or three pence, and they give a bounty upon ships going to the Missisippi, when our tobacco is loaded with a duty equal to seven times its prime cost; they may, with all these advantages, soon get this trade from us, the, only one this nation has left entire to itself. These advantages enable the planters to give a much better price for servants and slaves, and thereby to engross the trade. It was by these means, that the French got the sugar trade from us, after the treaty of Utrecht, by being allowed to transport their people from St. Christopher's to the rich and fresh lands of St. Domingo; and by removing from Canada to Louisiana, they may in the like manner get not only this, but every other branch of the trade of North America.
Of the way of making Indigo.
The blue stone, known by the name of Indigo, is the extract of a plant which they who have a sufficient number of slaves to manage it, make some quantities throughout all this colony. For this purpose they first weed the ground, and make small holes in it with a hoe, about five inches asunder, and on a straight line. In each of these holes they put five or six seeds of the indigo, which are small, long, and hard. When they come up, they put forth leaves somewhat like those of box, but a little longer and broader, and not so thick and indented. When the plant is five or six inches high, they take care to loosen the earth about the root, and at the same time to weed it. They reckon it has acquired a proper maturity, when it is about three feet and a half high: this you may likewise know, if the leaf cracks as you squeeze the plant in your hand.
Before you cut it, you get ready a place that is covered in the same manner with the one made for tobacco, about twenty-five feet high; in which you put three vats, one above another, as it were in different stories, so that the highest is the largest; that in the middle is square, and the deepest; the third, at bottom, is the least.
After these operations, you cut the indigo, and when you have several arms-full, or bundles of the plant, to the quantity judged necessary for one working, you fill the vat at least three quarters full; after which you pour water thereon up to the brim, and the plant is left to steep, in order to rot it; which is the reason why this vat is called the rotting-tub. For the three or four hours which the plant takes to rot, the water is impregnated with its virtue; and, though the plant is green, communicates thereto a blue colour.
At the bottom of the great vat, and where it bears on the one in the middle (which, as was said, is square) is a pretty large hole, stopped with a bung; which is opened when the plant is thought to be sufficiently rotten, and all the water of this vat, mixed with the mud, formed by the rotting of the plant, falls by this hole into the second vat; on the edges of which are placed, at proper distances, forks of iron or wood, on which large long poles are laid, which reach from the two sides to the middle of the water in the vat; the end plunged in the water is furnished with a bucket without a bottom. A number of slaves lay hold on these poles, by the end which is out of the water; and alternately pulling them down, and then letting the buckets fall into the vat, they thus continue to beat the water; which being thus agitated and churned, comes to be covered with a white and thick scum; and in such quantity as that it would rise up and flow over the brim of the vat, if the operator did not take care to throw in, from time to time, some fish-oil, which he sprinkles with a feather upon this scum. For these reasons this vat is called the battery.
They continue to beat the water for an hour and a half, or two hours; after which they give over, and the water is left to settle. However, they from time to time open three holes, which are placed at proper distances from top to bottom in one of the sides of this second vat in order to let the water run off clear. This is repeated for three several times; but when at the third time the muddy water is ready to come out at the lowermost hole, they stop it, and open another pierced in the lower part of that side, which rests on the third vat. Then all the muddy water falls through that hole of the second vat, into the third, which is the least, and is called the deviling (diablotin.)