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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 58

Pamphlet on the culture and manufacture of tobacco

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Pamphlet on the Culture and Manufacture of Tobacco:

Printed at the New Zealand Times office, Wellington. Lambton Quay,

1886.
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Preface.

The object of this pamphlet is to draw the attention of farmers and others to the fact that Tobacco culture will in all probability become one of the best paying industries in this Colony. I have pointed out the only and surest means of procuring the seeds of first-class plants. I have touched clearly, concisely, and truthfully upon planting, the bad quality of cigars sold in these colonies, the way they are made, and the class of material of which they are composed. After I have visited the tobacco lands up North, I intend to enlarge this pamphlet, for then I shall be qualified to write from personal knowledge as to the capabilities of the soil for planting purposes. In the meantime, if this little canoe is sufficiently buoyant to float over the broad waters, and avoid shipwreck, I am content. Sae, flow gently, sweet Afton, and dunna droon it.*

Wellington,

* i.e. Ye planters who have started at the wrong end.

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I.—A Manufacturer's Experience.

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TThe way to produce a superior class of locally-grown leaf tobacco, and the manufacture thereof, form a subject well worthy attention. At present the Tobacco Act of 1879, and the amended Acts of later dates, are so prohibitive and oppressive that persons who are thoroughly qualified to carry out tobacco culture to a successful issue do not feel disposed to enter into it and be heavily taxed whilst experimenting as to the best means of producing the superior classes of leaf at the lowest cost of production. However, there is a change coming, and while it is slowly moving onward I would have some enterprising person take the initiative in this industry, by carefully endeavouring to produce a prime tobacco seed thoroughly acclimatised.

It is a well-known fact that the early growers in Victoria rushed into planting in such a thoughtless manner that many of them lost considerably, at the same time doing the industry incalculable harm. They had no knowledge of tobacco culture, or where the seed they were planting came from. It was tobacco seed, that was sufficient—just sufficient for failure.

As far as I have seen the small experimentalists here are travelling at a slower pace, but over the same ground journeyed over by the Victorians, in proof of which I will state a few cases in point. Some years since I received samples of leaf from growers in the province of Nelson. Enclosed in one of the samples was a note intimating that the holder would dispose of all the leaf in hand at eighteen pence per lb. It was not worth one cent per cwt. On another occasion I was informed that a person at Papakura was growing leaf of superior quality and manufacturing a splendid sample of goods in the shape of cigars, cake tobacco, shag, and snuff. Feeling considerably interested in the tobacco business in all its branches, I induced my informant to procure for me samples of the goods. In due course they arrived. I certainly was thoroughly astonished at the would-be manufacturer's stupidity in page 5 attempting to overcome one of the impossibilities of tobacco making. The hitch occurred in endeavouring to produce the four lines from one kind of leaf. Nobody can do it, that is, and produce articles of any commercial value. The cigars were of a greenish cast, evidently made from unripe and half-cured leaf, rolled as hard as wire nails and as smooth, with about a wire nail's capacity for smoking. When burnt on a fire they emitted a stench that would have strangled an elephant. The other goods were about equal to the cigars. A manufacturer can produce cigars and snuff from one kind of leaf. He can also make shag and cake from one sample of leaf; but he cannot make cigars, cake and shag tobaccos from any one kind of leaf extant. Good cake and shag are returned only from one kind of leaf, called Virginia ground leaf or leaf from that seed, nor can any person make saleable cake or shag from the best or any other quality of Havana leaf. Many growers have shown leaf to me, and asked my opinion as to its quality and value. In most cases my answer has been: "It will do very well for sheep wash, and is just worth sheep wash prices and not a penny more."Some years since a person in Wellington asked my opinion about the quality of some leaf, grown, I think he said, by some Chinamen on the east coast of this island. My opinion being unfavorable he abandoned the idea of converting it into cigars. As well he did so, for the leaf was grown from low class South Sea Island seed, which produces a coarse large, thick veined, yellowish brown leaf, utterly unfit for manufacturing purposes. There is tobacco seed and tobacco seed. A single seed from a first-class yarrow plant would be worth £500 to any person in New Zealand, providing it would mature; the leaf, if sound, would be worth from fifteen to twenty shillings per lb. There are other seeds that I would not give five cents for five hundred bushels of them. Such being the case it must be patent to anyone that to succeed a planter must start with the proper seeds for specific purposes, supplemented by the requisite knowledge of planting, which can only be obtained by visiting the tobacco-growing countries. You certainly can obtain seeds from your consuls and friends in America; but I have seen so many failures from seeds so procured, that I would not trust to them. Consuls and friends, though living in tobacco-growing countries, may not know the difference between Bull Tongue and Cuba. One step of that kind would entail years of profitless labor, with failure, utter and complete, in the end. I was once a victim to this kind of misplaced confidence. It occurred in this way: Being in the manufacturing business, and at that particular time unable to get leaf from any of the surrounding colonies to please me, as I wanted to make a cigar which would sell for at least £20 page 6 per thousand, I decided to send to San Francisco for a bale of the best Havana. After sending three times, at the end of the eleventh month from the date of the first order, I received a bale of leaf laid on the cigar tables ready for making up. It cost 15s. 6d. per lb; it was a medium sample of leaf, but not anything like what I ought to have received for the money. Not satisfied, and determined to succeed, I sent an order accompanied with strict instructions as to the leaf required. In due time I received a bale; the first was medium good, the second was decidedly rotten. The agent who bought the leaf was a general seeds merchant, totally unacquainted with leaf tobacco.

To make the matter worse for me the holder would not ship it unless paid for on the spot. That bale was a dead loss. Twelve months' time and £140 lost by sending for what I ought to have gone and purchased. When a person has decided to do anything, and has carefully weighed the chances for and against the undertaking, it is very unsatisfactory afterwards to discover that the first move spoilt the whole scheme. Such was the case, however. Had I gone and purchased the leaf, the cost would have been less and the undertaking would have succeeded, instead of which it "treed the coon."

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II.—Planting.

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OOne of the greatest drawbacks to planting in this colony is the difficulty of obtaining first-class seeds of the best tobaccos grown in other countries. It requires the same amount of capital and acreage to produce a given quantity of leaf worth fifteen shillings per lb., and leaf worth sixpence per lb. I do not think that there can be two opinions as to which a planter should produce. Even supposing a few months and several hundreds of pounds are expended in procuring the seeds, one crop would amply recoup any planter for the outlay. I wish to impress upon you a few simple facts, which are: If you wish to make planting a payable industry in New Zealand go to the plantations and get the seeds, and no longer trust to seeds that came from you know not where, and the quality of which you cannot ascertain until the season is over. All qualities of tabacco seeds resemble each other so closely that only an expert can tell the good from the bad, and he can only do so whilst the seeds are fresh, by a process known only to himself. Once more, if you want good seeds go and get page 7 them, even then you may have some trouble to procure them; planters do not readily part with their best seeds. On arriving where you purpose obtaining seed take particular notice of all things that in any way relate to tobacco planting; procure all the information possible about the seed, seed beds, shoots, and transplanting; how the plants are tended during growth; the time and manner of cutting, drying, and packing for market. The above cautious proceedings are recommended for the reason that all kinds of seeds are not manipulated the one way. Also note the soil, climate, variation of temperature, and the tabulated record of the rain form of former years, and so acquire some knowledge as to the climatic influences upon the various classes of leaf. Secure your seeds from healthy, fully matured plants; fill a phial with them; cork tight, and seal; then I think you will have something that will become valuable to future planters of New Zealand. On your return select the proper localities and prepare your seed beds; pour the seeds you intend planting out on a sheet of glass; shake them down into one layer; place another sheet of glass on the top of the seeds, press the two sheets together, cant them to an angle of 45 deg., then shake them; all the small seeds that fall out put in the fire. Of those left between the glasses, select, with the aid of a microscope, the finest and smoothest, plant them, destroy the others. Planting and curing the leaf, as it is called in these colonies, is about as simple as drying hay. Here is planting from the seed bed to the packed case for market. The seed beds should be good sandy loam, well worked and nicely broken up; two inches of the surface should be one-third wood ashes, and two-thirds road dust or riddled loam, thoroughly amalgamated. The bed should not be more than four feet in width, but as long as you like. When the spring frosts have disappeared take a quart of road dust, dry and pass it through a fine riddle; spread it on a tray; put the seeds in cold water for five minutes, then drain and scatter them over the dust; stir it up until the seeds are well mixed; sow this very care-fully over the bed; add an over dressing of wood ashes, very thin. If the ground is parched water it after sundown; put up a post at each end of the bed; add a ridge pole. At night throw a fly over to guard against a late frost; cross plough and harrow a field, then with a plough set shallow, so that it only scratches, mark off the field into four feet right angled spaces; for very tine leaf the spaces are less. When the plants are about five inches high dibble one in at each angle, do this in the evening or on a cloudy day; after go over the field, and where a plant has failed, pull it and insert another. If the worms become troublesome pick them off night and morning, or turn turkeys in, they will clear the plants and do page 8 very little injury to them; keep the field perfectly clear of weeds and the soil loose; when the plants begin to bunch at the top they are about to blossom; pinch off the tops and remove the bottom course of leaves, dry them. The yellowish green looking cakes called "Golden Bar,"and the light mild cigarette tobaccos are manufactured from this half ripe rubbish. The plant left for seed will indicate when the leaf is ripe. Be sure and cut before the frosts arrive, for, though tobacco will stand heat, wind, and rain, frost kills, and wherever touched, that portion is valueless. For a cutting implement take two feet of an old scythe blade; straighten the shank and put on a handle; curve the point like a shinty stick; cut with this or a bill hook; cut on a hot day and allow the plants to remain where they fall until the leaves have wilted, then carry them to the shed. Do not place them in a heap or they will heat and spoil; split the stalks up the centre, leaving half the leaves on each portion of stalk; tie the two butts of each half stalk about six inches apart. The drying shed must be well roofed and the walls about ten feet high. Lay four inch battons on the flat from wall-plate to wall-plate, lengthwise the shed, leaving fifteen inch spaces; put a support across the centre if required. The ends of the shed should be movable to allow a free current of air to pass through the leaf. Hang the plants over the battons, leaving a few inches between each stalk. There will be some very hot days when the plants cannot be touched without breaking them; when they can be handled turn them once a day. As soon as the leaf is brown and without green spots it is ready for packing. Some day when the leaf is in case—that is when it can be handled without breaking—pull the leaves from the stalks, place eleven of them together and tie the butts with a leaf. That is called a hand. Pack in alternate right angled layers in a case sufficiently large to allow the leaves to lie at full length. I will conclude this chapter by stating that tobaccos of the better sorts will thrive in this colony for one good and sufficient reason, which is this: That the entire surface soil in New Zealand is impregnated with lime, and that is one of the constituents that tobacco cannot get along without.

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III.—Scraps from American Factories Worked up in Europe.

WWhen Miss Phely spoke of visiting the kitchen to inspect things, and to ascertain what Aunt Chloe was doing, St. Clair dissuaded her, by saying that she might find the ancient goddess washing the dishes with the foot of one of her old stockings. The thought of things being done on such a gigantic footing, I have no doubt, often interfered with Miss Phely's dinner in that house. What I am about to state, relative to American Tobacco Scraps, may also spoil many dinners, by interfering with a number of after-dinner smokes, and the flourish of not a few smooth, fine-looking weeds, whose inner parts have been resurrected from the spittoon and floor. However, if facts will induce consumers to go in for more, expensive and cleaner locally-grown and manufactured smokes, I am content. Cigar makers, in the States generally operate in large rooms. A spittoon is placed between each pair. The greater portion of the operatives chew tobacco, all smoke, and many take snuff. The result of all this is copious expectoration—old quids and cigar stumps. Sometimes these things find there way into the receptacles placed to receive them, oftener they reach the floor. In the early morning, prior to the arrival of the operatives, striper boys remove the shorts, empty the spittoons, and sweep the floor. All the sweepings are put into barrels, old quids, stumps of cigars, and other things, until large quantities of this scavanage is collected. Then it is purchased by a cousin of the scavenger man, he consigns this "Araby the blessed"to European manufacturers, and they cover it with a decent-looking wrapper, but of very indifferent quality. If light colored cigars are the fashion, they are made light; if dark are leading, they are dyed. They are then dried in heated rooms (which improves bad cigars by making them worse). When dried they are packed in Honduras cedar boxes, stamped, and covered with spurious Havana labels, shipped foreign, and sold in bond in the Colonies at from 30s to £6 per 1000. Even at the above quotations shippers realise large profits, which is not to be wondered at, when they can purchase sufficient of those second innings for $50, to make two hundered thousand (gutter gems*). In pulling the gems asunder you will often find hairs, chips, paper, matches, lumps of dried paste, rags, nails, and leather, in fact a regular marine shop stock. The inside of the gems are page 10 rolled by machinery, and the operatives, men and women, are so poorly paid, that they cannot spare the time to remove any of the above mentioned substances. Now, observe the difference. Savellanos or good Renas are made of tobacco worth from 12s 6d to 15s per lb, and they cannot be landed here for less than £16 10s per 1000. But then they are made by operatives who earn from £2 15s to £4 per week, and they are particulary careful not to allow any substance to get into the fillers that would injure the flavor of the cigars. Many lavender kidded exquisites twirl their sticks, flourish their resurrections and exclaim—"By Jove, George, splendid cigar, by Jove.""I have no doubt they pay sixpence for them, and have them out of the right box. That only proves the Good Samaritan quality of the seller, and lavender kid's deficiency in smoke lore—

Where ignorance is folly,
"Tis bliss to be wise.

* Good name.

IV.—Maoris as Planters.

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TThere is a partially smothered, smouldering fire, deep in the hearts of the Maoris of this Island, that may, if any serious difficulty arises between England and any of the Great Powers, burst forth at a moment's notice, spreading death and destruction of property over a large area of country. If this widespread desolation, or rather, the chances of its ever occuring, can be lessened, I consider it the duty of all right thinking men to use every means at their disposal to prevent such a dreadful catastrophe, and so preserve from utter annihilation one of the best aboriginal races of the present day. There have been many schemes tried in most new countries for the civilisation of native possessors of the soil. Prominent amongst the processes were Christianity, wiskey, land sharking, and the sword. About the time the Ab's became thoroughly conversant with some of the most complicated principles of civilisation, there were none of him left. The other principles of civilisation—and, I believe, by far the best—are labor, continuous labor, and the school master abroad; a big bag of dollars as a result of the labor, and cultivated intelligence as a return for the teaching. In the case of the Maori, there is something of him left, and a tall, broad, strong something it is, too. And holding as they do, large areas of the best, agricul page 11 tural lands of the Island, who are in a better position to become tobacco planters than they? And planters they will become after it has been proven by experiments, outside their holdings, that prime leaf will grow here. There certainly must be some grand tobacco country for the best qualities of leaf up the North Cape way. There are people that say Maoris will not stick at work day after day and month after month. If this is so or not, I am not qualified to say, never having seen the Maori where the full dress is a tomahawk neat. I have, however, read everything about them I could get hold of, and the readings have convinced me that in the old days, at any rate, they were remarkably keen traders, and I am half inclined to believe, are so yet. Here is a little anecdote as an illustration, related by a French gentleman who was present. "In the early days of Akaroa, a priest on a proselyting expedition at a pah held service, sprinkled the heads with holy water, and gave the old chief a blanket. A few days after a baptist performed, and gave the chief two blankets. Some time after the priest returned and held mass. The old chief remained outside looking on. After service, the priest asked him why he had not entered. Then the old sinner opened his budget. 'See, first time you come you give me one blanket, ole one, you put water on my head ! kapi! Bime-by noder man come, he give me two blankets, ole ones, he put water on my head ! kapi! kapi! Now (holding up three fingers), if you give me three blankets, new ones, you can put water on my head ! kapi! kapi! kapi!' The priest smiled and gave in."Now, I maintain, that that old copperhead displayed a considerable amount of business capacity. He did not understand much about the water-sprinkling business, but he knew how to get six blankets a long way below cost price.

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V—Published in the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Industries.

Wellington,
GGentlemen,—I respectfully beg leave to call your attention to a few of the clauses of the Tobacco Act of 1879, that will prevent capitalists from introducing tobacco culture and the manufacture of cigars and tobacco into the Colony. I submit a few amendments for your consideration :—
  • Reduction of manufacturers' license fee.
  • Reduction of duty on leaf grown in the Colony.
  • Reduction of duty on imported leaf.[Note, this to be reduced until good leaf is grown in the Colony, then a protective tariff.]
I am, &c.,

Chas. Harvell.

Clause 5th, Act 1879. A yearly license fee of £50 is a tax that will press unfairly upon the small manufacturers, who may perhaps be engaged in only one branch of the business, that is making cigars by hand labor. Under such conditions they would lose about 20 per cent of raw material, through their inability to utilise the scraps, stems, and shorts from the cigar tables, or the waste from badly packed cases. On the other hand, capitalists, running large concerns, fitted with all the latest improvements in machinery for cutting, grinding, and pressing, lose absolutely nothing. Suggested amendments clause 5. Issue licenses, monthly, quarterly or yearly, at so much per head, for operatives engaged in converting raw leaf tobacco into articles of consumption.

Apprentices, to serve the first year of their time free of license Clause 7—Let the applicant for a license enter into a bond, himself in the sum of £500. Clause 12—The duty on cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, and snuff manufactured from tobacco grown in the Colony ought to be only 6d per lb, and the duty on imported leaf tobacco, 2s per lb.

Manufacturers who may desire to produce medium or superior classes of goods, will be obliged to use an equal quantity of local grown and imported leaf, at least, I think so. I arrive at the above conclusion, because I have never seen any leaf grown in any of the Australian Colonies, or New Zealand, that could be made up and give satisfactory results, unless mixed with imported leaf.

Tobacco grown in the Colonies from the best imported seed will require careful cultivation for some time before it becomes page 13 thoroughly acclimatised, and equal in quality to the leaf produced in the country from whence the seed was obtained. Therefore, a considerable time must elapse before the New Zealand planters will be able to shut out the imported manufactured goods, and raw leaf. In the interim planters should cultivate the best leaf, and none other. The best samples of leaf are grown only in the West Indian Islands (excepting Lattekea, an Eastern leaf, that Englishmen would not smoke). The next best is a leaf called Florida Havana, produced from Havana seed planted in the State of Florida. There are other kinds and qualities of leaf grown from Florida in the South to Connecticut in the North. Florida Havanna, I believe, would grow in favorable localities anywhere between the North Cape and the Bay of Islands. Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky might be cultivated at the Bay of Islands and along the East Coast up to Hawkes Bay, or perhaps to Wellington. Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts seed leaf ought to grow in Marlborough, Nelson, Canterbury, and part of Otago. The prices of American leaf in the States range from $3 per lb for the Southern dow to 10 cents for the poorest Northern. An acre of fair land ought to yield about a ton of leaf—some seasons perhaps less—one and a half tons are very often grown on prime land. The very best Yarra leaf, grown in Cuba is made into cigars that sell for £50 per thousand. Is there any leaf grown in any of the Australian Colonies, and made into cigars which would realise £5 per thousand in any market in the world ? Think of it!

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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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