Tobacco Leaves Part 5

The process of curing varies considerably in different states. Some growers prefer to put the tobacco into the sheds immediately after cutting, and allow very little exposure in the fields. The temperature is usually kept steady at about 90 F. Again the process is different according to the quality of tobacco required. For the heavy type of leaf which is intended for the export trade, the curing in the sheds is done by an _open_ fire, the fuel being usually hardwood logs. The smoky, creosotic flavor is absorbed by the leaf, and, although this flavor is not relished by the smokers of the U. S., it is much liked in Europe. The curing in such cases may last for 4 or even 5 days. The tobacco is suspended on poles by the stalks and the fires are built on the floor immediately under them so that the carbonaceous products are easily absorbed by the open pores of the leaf.

The chewing and pipe smoking tobacco, as well as cigarette tobaccos including all the bright yellow tobaccos used in the U. S. are usually cured by _Flue_ curing. In this case the heat comes from pipes which run around the curing houses and are fed from a furnace in an adjoining chamber or in a cellar. The temperature can be easily regulated. "Flue"

curing is generally completed in about 4 days. "Flue" curing does not clog up the pores of the leaf which therefore remain more absorbent than in the open fire cured tobacco. This is an important matter for the manufacturers because the flue cured leaf will absorb twice as much of the flavoring sauces (which are added to certain kinds of tobacco) than tobacco leaf cured by open fires.

Air exposure of 6 to 8 weeks (sometimes extended to 3 or 4 months) is necessary when tobacco is cured by exposure to the sun and air. It is claimed, however, that this method of curing preserves far better the natural flavor of the leaf; and, where flavor and aroma are highly important, this method is always preferred. Hence all cigar leaf tobaccos are cured by exposure to natural sunlight and not by artificial heat.

"Air" curing as distinct from sun curing is generally done in open sheds which are thoroughly ventilated and kept as far as possible at a temperature of about 75 F. The leaf is usually allowed to cure while attached to the stalk, but Florida curers generally prefer to strip the leaf and treat it separately. The finer cla.s.ses of pipe smoking tobaccos are air cured.

After the curing is completed the color of the leaf is usually fixed.

Generally speaking, the riper the leaf the lighter will be its color when cured. Thus the bottom leaves of the plant will be lighter in color than the upper leaves because they are more mature.

(_For references see end of Chapter VIII_)

CHAPTER VII

THE MARKETING AND SALE OF TOBACCO LEAF

METHODS OF DISPOSAL BY THE GROWER. THE WAREHOUSE SYSTEM. DIRECT PURCHASE. PRINc.i.p.aL MARKETS IN THE UNITED STATES. PRICES.

THE MARKETING AND SALE OF TOBACCO LEAF

When the tobacco leaf is fully cured it is at once prepared for the market. The first step is the planters' cla.s.sification of the leaf. In the case of pipe smoking and chewing tobacco the planter collects all the imperfect, injured leaves, or those inferior from any cause, and ties them in bundles. These are the planters _lugs_. All other grades are _leaf_.

Slightly injured leaves are cla.s.sed as _low-leaf_ or _seconds_. The others are cla.s.sed _medium_, _good_, _fine_ and _selected_ leaf, according to grade, color, quality, etc.

In the case of cigar leaf tobacco a similar cla.s.sification is made, more care being taken owing to the very great difference in price between the better and poorer qualities. This difference may be as much as 20c in the lb., the finer and more suitable leaf being eagerly sought for.

Pipe smoking and chewing tobacco leaf is usually packed in hogsheads or cases each weighing from 1,000 to 1,400 lbs. The operation of packing the leaf is called "prizing." Cigar leaf is usually put up in "hands." A "hand" consists of from 25 to 75 leaves tied together. Four hands tied together make a "carrot" and 80 carrots go to the bale, but the size of the bale varies considerably. The tobacco is then ready for the buyer.

There are two systems of disposing of the planters' product: (1) direct purchase by the manufacturer or by a middleman from the grower; and (2) what is known as the warehouse system. In the southern states the warehouse system prevails. Every important tobacco section in the south has its public warehouse which is under the control and supervision of state law. Many of these warehouses are long established, that at Richmond, Va., dating as far back as 1730, and those at Louisville and Clarksville about 1839.

On appointed days the planter brings his leaf to the warehouse. Here it is entered as "loose leaf" or "inspected leaf." In the case of loose leaf, the tobacco is open to the inspection of prospective buyers, who examine it and afterwards bid on it. In the case of "inspected leaf" the warehouse officials first examine the consignments, grade them and mark them according to their judgment, taking samples. The samples are open to buyers' inspection and form the basis of sale. Tobacco auctions are regularly held when the buyers a.s.semble and bid on the "loose leaf" and "inspected" lots. Prices of the various grades are fixed and sales take place at the day's price.

The princ.i.p.al tobacco markets are:

For Kentucky and Tennessee--At Louisville, Clarksville and Cincinnati.

For Maryland and Ohio--At Baltimore.

For North Carolina--At Durham and Winston.

For Virginia--At Richmond.

The warehouse system has the great advantage that the proceedings are open and the prices are recorded and published. Hence growers can know how the market fluctuates and judge the best time for sale. This is not the case when the sale is private between the buyer and seller as is customary in the eastern and northern states. Here the price actually received by the grower is often different from that given out as paid.

The price of tobacco leaf has had many vicissitudes during the past 25 years, the price often having reached so low a point as to discourage producers. Thus at Winston, N. C., the price has gradually fallen from 12.3c per lb. in 1889 to 6.3c in 1896. In the same period Burley leaf at Louisville and Cincinnati fell from 10c to 7-1/2c. Prices similarly dropped in other centers. The price of cigar leaf has latterly increased.

In 1900 prices ran from 6 to 15 cents; in 1905 from 8 to 17 cents. Many conditions at home and abroad affect the price, such as bad harvests or inferior grades of produce.

The tobacco trust has been very unjustly blamed by many for the falling price of tobacco. As a matter of fact and record, however, the concentration of buying power by eliminating the middleman and the small dealers has not only placed the grower in a better position by giving him a better price, as recent records show, but it has benefited the consumer also who can obtain the superior grades at a lower price. It is the middleman's profit that has been cut. Moreover, the concentrated buying power of the large interests here has been an effective force in keeping up tobacco leaf prices against the foreign buyers. It must be remembered that about half of our crop is exported. The buyers of this portion, who are princ.i.p.ally the agents of foreign governments (in the cases where tobacco is a government monopoly as in France, Italy, etc.) a.s.semble at the auctions and bid in the usual way. As this compet.i.tion is very limited there is always an opportunity for such buyers to agree among themselves as to the limit of prices. This has been one of the important factors which has kept the prices of tobacco leaf down. The concentration of American buying power has, however, been a formidable check on it, the prices received by the growers being now fair and reasonable, and such as are the result of a healthy market, where the factors of supply and demand have their full share of effect.

The government statistics show that for 1914 the prices of leaf varied from 5.5c to 20c for common to good varieties.

(_For references see end of Chapter VIII_)

CHAPTER VIII

REHANDLING AND FERMENTATION OF TOBACCO LEAF PRIOR TO MANUFACTURE

SELECTION OF LEAF. TREATMENT AND BLENDING. OBJECTS AND METHODS OF FERMENTATION. ACTION OF MICROBES.

REHANDLING AND FERMENTATION OF TOBACCO LEAF PRIOR TO MANUFACTURE

We have seen how the tobacco pa.s.ses from the grower to the manufacturer or leaf dealer. Before it is fitted, however, for manufacture into cigars or other finished products the leaf must go through many processes, the most important of which is fermentation. These processes, which are usually known as rehandling, are carried out in special buildings which are called leaf houses and stemmeries. The procedures in different leaf houses may vary somewhat, but the general principles and objects in view are the same in all. Moreover, the treatment is different, according to the ulterior disposition of the leaf, i. e. whether intended for cigars, pipe smoking or other product.

The general treatment as carried out in large establishments is about as follows:

The leaf as soon as it is received whether in casks, cases, bales, or otherwise is opened up and inspected in the casing room. Large concerns which manufacture or deal in cigar and other kinds of leaf, sort out the different kinds suitable for each cla.s.s of product, i. e. wrappers, fillers, binders, cigarette leaf, plug leaf, etc. These are distributed to either special houses or departments. The tobacco leaf when first received is usually dry and brittle. The bundles are carefully opened up and the leaves loosened and spread out on large trucks where they are sprayed with water. When the leaf has soaked the water and is pliable it undergoes a sorting which is done by selecting leaves from different cases or even bundles of leaves and in a general way arranging them so that each truckfull represents a blend of the different kinds of leaf which are suitable for the purpose in view. These sorted packages are then roughly fastened together and after being again sprinkled thoroughly are sent to the "sweating" room to undergo fermentation which may last several weeks.

The temperature of this room must be carefully regulated and is usually kept at about 90 F.

The selection and blending of the different kinds of leaf is most important. It requires accurate and expert knowledge in choosing leaves and kinds possessing different strengths and other qualities and in combining them in such proportions that the final effect of the blend gives just what is required.

It is particularly in this expert treatment of the leaf before manufacture that the greatest advance has been made in the tobacco industry. The smoker has the advantage and satisfaction of knowing that not only does he get the benefit of improved scientific knowledge and sanitary conditions by which anything that might be harmful or undesirable is removed, but that handling the leaf in large quant.i.ties effects great economics and procures for him the benefit of choicest selected grades at a reduced cost.

It may be said here incidentally that leaves of the very best tobaccos which are defective merely in size, or color, etc., are put through exactly the same processes as the choicer quality leaves, and are used in the manufacture of the popular priced machine-made "little cigars" and "cheroots."

It will be necessary now to digress for a short time and consider what happens during the process of fermentation.

FERMENTATION OF TOBACCO

The fermenting of tobacco leaf has for its princ.i.p.al objects, (1) the removal of acrid matters, (2) the fixing of the color, and (3) the production of flavor. Fermentation can only take place under suitable conditions of heat and moisture, and is essentially a chemical process during which certain organic compounds stored in the plant are split up and others formed.

A certain amount of fermentation takes place in the curing houses during the "yellowing" of the leaf after it has been harvested, but as we have seen the main process of fermentation does not occur until it is "rehandled" by the manufacturers.

The general opinion held at present as the result of investigation is that the transformations which are effected in the leaf are purely the result of chemical processes. As the plant slowly dies and decomposes special ferments are produced. These ferments set up an oxidization process which splits up the complex organic compounds which still exist in the leaf cells. The starch in the plant is changed into sugar which is slowly consumed. There is a decrease in the fats and gummy substances, also in nicotine and nitrogenous compounds, and there is a formation of certain organic acids such as malic, citric and oxalic which are essential in the production of flavor. Briefly it may be said that the process is an attempt by the plant to prolong its existence by feeding on its own substance, by drawing on its own reserves and on its own structure for the food which its cells no longer receive through the natural growing process. When the struggle is over the "fermentation" is complete. The necessity for maturing tobacco has long been known but the exact nature of the changes that take place during the process were not understood.

Since the discoveries of Louis Pasteur regarding the part played by bacteria in general fermentative processes it has been generally claimed by bacteriologists that the changes wrought in the leaf and the production of flavor are solely the work of bacteria. Although this view has not been proved it has never been fully disproved, and there appears to be no doubt that the microbes known to exist in the leaf during the fermentation process play an important part in the process. Fermentation can only take place as stated under suitable conditions of heat and moisture and these are the conditions which favor the development of microbes and enable them to work. The results obtained are probably partially due to chemical action and partly to bacterial action, the two being complementary to each other.

In 1899 Suchsland, a German scientist, startled the tobacco world by a.s.serting that the flavor of tobacco was in no way due to the effects of the soil and climate where it was grown, but was solely due to microbic action, and that the specific flavor and aroma of any given tobacco could be artificially produced by the cultivation of selected bacteria and allowing the tobacco to cure and ferment under their action. He conducted a series of experimental investigations in which he searched for and isolated the specific microbes found in the best West Indian tobacco. From these he made artificial cultures and introduced them into heaps of inferior, coa.r.s.e German tobacco which was undergoing curing. His results were such that the smoking quality of the leaf was entirely changed. It could scarcely be distinguished from the best Cuban tobacco and experts and connoisseurs failed to identify the product as German tobacco. A company was formed to exploit the new ideas commercially, but it does not appear to have met with success. Other investigations failed to obtain Suchsland's results and extensive investigation in the Agricultural Experimental Station in the United States have not up to now produced any results confirmatory of the theory.

We can now proceed to follow the course of the tobacco in its peregrinations through the leaf house.