Of the care necessary to be bestowed upon the plants.—In the east a little screen, formed by two clods, is to be erected, with a view to protecting the plant from the morning sun, and retaining the dew for a longer time. The weeds to be carefully exterminated, and the wild shoots removed. A grub which occasionally appears in great numbers is particularly dangerous. Rain is very injurious immediately before the ripening, when the plants are no longer in a condition to secrete the gummy substance so essential to the tobacco, which, being soluble in water, would be drawn off by the action of the rain. Tobacco which has been exposed to bad weather is always deficient in juice and flavor, and is full of white spots, a certain sign of its bad quality. The injury is all the greater the nearer the tobacco is to its ripening period; the leaves hanging down to the ground then decay, and must be removed. If the subsoil is not deep enough, a carefully tended plant will turn yellow, and nearly wither away. In wet seasons this does not occur so generally, as the roots in insufficient depth are enabled to find enough moisture.
Cutting and manipulation of the leaves in the drying shed.—The topmost leaves ripen first; they are then of a dark yellow color, and inflexible. They must be cut off as they ripen, collected into bundles, and brought to the shed in covered carts. In wet or cloudy weather, when the nightly dews have not been thoroughly evaporated by the sun, they must not be cut. In the shed the leaves are to hang upon cords or split Spanish cane, with sufficient room between them for ventilation and drying. The dried leaves are then laid in piles, which must not be too big, and frequently turned over. Extreme care must be taken that they do not become overheated and ferment too strongly. This operation, which is of the utmost importance to the quality of the tobacco, demands great attention and skill, and must be continued until nothing but an aromatic smell of tobacco can be noticed coming from the leaves; but the necessary skill for this manipulation is only to be acquired by long practice, and not from any written instructions.
[1] The British Consul estimates the receipts from this monopoly for the year 1866–7 at $8,418,939, after an expenditure of $4,519,866; thus leaving a clear profit of $3,899,073. In the colonial budget for 1867 the profit on tobacco was estimated at $2,627,976, while the total expenditure of the colony, after deduction of the expenses occasioned by the tobacco management, was set down at $7,033,576.
According to the official tables of the chief of the Administration in Manila, 1871, the total annual revenue derived from the tobacco management between the years 1865 and 1869 amounted, on an average, to $5,367,262. By reason of proper accounts being wanting an accurate estimate of the expenditure cannot be delivered; but it would be at least $4,000,000, so that a profit of only $1,367,262 remains.
[2] Instruccion general para la Direccion, Administracion, y Intervencion de las Rentas Estancadas, 1849.
[3] Memoria sobre el Desestanco del Tabaco en las Islas Filipinas. Don J. S. Agius, Binondo (Manila), 1871.
[4] The tobacco in China appears to have come from the Philippines. “The memoranda discovered in Wang-tao leave no possible doubt that it was first introduced into South China from the Philippine Islands in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, most probably by way of Japan.”—(Notes and Queries, China and Japan, May 31st, 1857.)
From Schlegel, in Batavia, it was brought by the Portuguese into Japan somewhere between the years 1573 and 1591, and spread itself so rapidly in China that we find even as early as 1538, that the sale of it was forbidden under penalty of beheading.