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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 58

VI.—Miscellaneous

VI.—Miscellaneous.

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FFake Tobacco-making is a costly affair and can be made to pay only in a large establishment, the requisites for which are—hydraulic presses, skilled operatives, a large and constant supply of the right kind of leaf, and a very skilful manager, which means locking up a considerable amount of capital as dead stock. This I think is an outlay that had better be avoided until the fact is thoroughly established that leaf for tobacco-making purposes will grow here and yield a profit to the growers. The leaf for cake tobacco-making purposes is long, broad, thick, and gummy, yields heavily, and is generally allowed to retune for three years; sold in the States at from 5 to 20 cents per lb. (wholesale, of course). Bear in mind this leaf is fit for cake and page 14 twist tobaccos only; made into a cigar and smoked, the stench would make a bed bug sick unto death, and the smoker ditto. A cigar factory can be run on a very small capital. A supply of leaf, some tables, cutting boards, knives, paste pots, barrels for fillers a few cigar makers, and the concern is afloat. Cigars should never be dried in close heated stove or pipe rooms, nor packed in boxes until they are a month old. Shelve them in a dry room, five feet from the floor and upwards; keep them there for six months, at least, before placing them in the market. There is no dead stock in cigars, the longer they are kept the better they become; a very sharp flavoured cigar becomes pleasanter with age. The names of the various cigar leafs are—Yarra, Havana, Cuba, Florida Havana, St. Domingo, St. Jago, Porto Rico, Mavsville, Kentucky, Pennsylvania Seed, Connecticut Seed, Massachusetts Seed, Esmarelda, and German Strip, price from 1s. to 25s. per lb. There is a great deal more to be said upon this subject; at present I am condensing as much as possible; some other time I may open out.

How to Smoke a Cigar.

When I say a cigar, I mean a twenty pounder (£20), nothing less, to those who can get them, which is not at present an easy matter in New Zealand. One hour after dinner enter your smoking den, turn all others out and lock the door; remove your coat, collar, and boots, unbutton your vest, and one other button if necessary; draw your rocker up to the grate and drop into it; with a sharp knife cut about an eighth of an inch off the cigar; cut clean and carefully to avoid breaking the wrapper which may happen if the cigar is as dry as it ought to be; take the cigar gingerly between the thumb and finger, do not press it or you may crack the wrapper; now insert the end between your teeth, if the lips are not blubbers, if they are, then between the lips only. Light, up, but not from a match, candle, or gas jet—light from ignited punk or chinese fire stick; put your feet on the fender, mantlepiece, or ridgepole, anyhow, get them up to your satisfaction, and have them off your mind; then throw yourself back in the rocker and start on a voyage to discover the exquisite flavor of that twenty pounder. Do not chaw the end of the weed like a porker chewing a straw, nor puff as if you were smoking for a wager; smoke gently, very gently, do not take more than three draws without removing the cigar. Occasionally throw your head back, shut one eye, open one comer of your mouth and produce a miniature Mount Etna on the burst. Never knock the ash off, and if the cigar is perfecly dry and smoked slowly, it will not fall off, cigars smoke much better with the ash on than off. Never allow page 15 yourself to be disturbed whilst smoking. If the house takes fire see that cigar out to the last inch and a quarter, throw that, away; if the house does not take fire you may throw your head back, half close your eyes, and pass a very pleasant half-hour in a smoker's paradise. Whisky and the other We are not wanted on this scene.

Cigarette Paper.

Most people are under the impression that cigarette paper is made from rice straw; more likely from old rags and old lint from battlefields and other places. There is a substance in this colony which, I believe, would make splendid cigarette paper; that substance is waste tow from the flax mills. There is a paper mill in the country, I believe, why not try the tow. The consumption of cigarette paper in the colonies is considerable, and the trade worth securing, I should think.

Manure.

Rubbish from stables and barn yards, which has been exposed to rain and sun, until the greater portion of the ammonia and other stimulants are lost, will not do for tobacco lands. Dig compost pits, not deeper than five feet, otherwise as large as you like; brick and face with cement. Melt mutton suet, whilst hot stir in enough pulverized whiting to make a good thick paint; stir, keep it hot, and apply to the cement with a stiff brush; this stops the pores in the cement. Take two boards five feet long, six inches wide and one inch thick; nail them together, flat and edge flush; stand this in the corner of the vat; put a little hand pump in here. Burn all the old tobacco stalks; put the ash under cover and keep it dry; put a layer of barnyard and stable manure into the pit every day; sprinkle a few pounds of lime over the manure, not enough to set the pit on fire, but just sufficient to shorten the the straw; add any smashed up bones, old boots or leather, chopped up, and fowl's droppings; scatter them over the manure; throw on enough water, or kitchen slops, which is better, to moisten the straw; two hours after cover with a couple of inches of the stalk ash. When the liquor begins to make, punch some holes through the compost with a crowbar or pointed stick, pump up the liquor and throw it over the compost. When you want to use the manure mix it until it absorbs as much of the liquor as possible. Fall or spring (when used), spread this over the land and plough in immediately day by day. The liquor left in the vat mix into a thick mortar, with rich spongy loam. Dig a hole in clayey ground, put the paste into the hole; cover with a waterproof cover of earth or wood until wanted for the seed bed; mix to a thin paste with page 16 water spread over the bed and dig in; roof the compost, pit to keep out the rain. To a fairly intelligent man the above is sufficient. Compost made this way is a great recouper for tobacco lands.

At the late Industrial Exhibition in Wellington there was leaf tobacco, exhibited, I think, by one of the Northern Companies. Understand, I do not want to thrust a knife injuriously into any portion of the tobacco industry in the colony. Far from it. The leaf was well grown, of good color, not worm eaten, and thoroughly dried; about equal in value and quality to Maysville Kentucky. From the appearance of the sample exhibited I am convinced that the soil on which it was grown would produce a much finer and more costly article. I think the leaf was lacking in saltpetre. This constituent can be added to leaf; but as it is very easy to overdo it and spoil the leaf, I had better not explain the operation. There are processes for softening the rank flavor of low class tobaccos, and to give a white ash to dark burning leaf; but the leaf so manipulated is no imitation of a superior quality of tobacco, it is only a poor leaf slightly improved and nothing more. My advice to growers—sell all the coarse rank leaf on hand and produce no more of it; procure some first-class seed at any cost; nurse and watch the growing plants carefully as the Alchemists of old watched their bubbling crucibles, and you will find, or I am much mistaken, what they did not find, success at the bottom. Keep at this until you have produced leaf that an honest practical cigar maker, one that has seen and knows something about the smoke world, pronounces to be prime, pack that carefully and send it to London, the market of the world. If the right thing it will be stamped with the Hall Mark of competition. Once marked, the quality of the leaf is guaranteed to manufacturers in all parts of the world.

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