Snow's modern barn system of raising and curing tobacco

Front matter

*

SNOWS

MODERN BARN SYSTEM

Preface To Fourth Edition

In offering to tobacco growers the fourth edition of my bo< >k. my aim is not to add anything new, except so far as the rapid strides of the " Modern Barn " and " Stick for Log Barn " wirecuring process seem to call for it.

My former pamphlets and circulars have made tobacco growers throughout the country so well acquainted with the merits of my process that it seems superfluous to add anything. But the demand for "more light" has been so steady, and the calls for the book so numerous, that the previous editions have been entirely exhausted. My present object is to comply with the requests of my friends in all parts of the tobacco region, and to answer, generally, the many questions which are constantly asked me. The enormous growth of my correspondence ha,- made this method a necessity. I ^h' not expect to be able to fully accomplish my purpose, but will hereafter endeavor, as I have heretofore clone, to reply to all letter.- as promptly as possible. To my patrons and others I still say: I will never grow weary of reading and answering such letters as I am daily receiving. I take this opportunity of returning my thanks to the great multitude who have so ably helped me to make tobacco growing and curing a source of pleasure and profit to the farmer.

Address correspondence to

W. IT SNOW,

January, lS,,; High Paint, X. C

Introduction

The production of tobacco is one of the great industries of our country. Its use is considered by a great portion of our people a necessity. Tobacco forms an important expense account with such people, and if it be claimed that it is only a luxury, it is the only luxury they have, and one which is indulged in with the least possible injury to the human system. " The laborer in the gloomy mines, the honest tiller of the soil, the hard-worked railroader, and the busy man of the counting-room, all go about their tasks with lighter hearts under the mild and soothing influence of tobacco. From early in life until the shadows of twilight begin to gather about him, man's most constant companion is the bewitching weed. Other friends may leave him, his bosom companions pass away, and the vigor of youth give place to tottering age, but tobacco remains to soothe his sadness and cheer the gloom of his life." He is entitled to have it in its best possible form. In money value Tobacco stands number seven among our field crops, and aggregates six hundred millions pounds annually. It brings the planters nearly seventy-two millions dollars each year and the manufacturers as much more, making one hundred and forty-four millions in the industry.

There is great need for a scientific method of cultivating and curing the crop, which is wholly wanting at the present time. '• A great mystery doth hedge about" the industry. There are a great many varieties of tobacco and almost as many methods of cultivating and curing; all these methods cannot be right. The great bulk of tobacco grown at the present time is cured as the Indians cured the weed four hundred years ago. Demonstration has conclusively proved that the red man's method is based neither upon science nor economy. It is wasteful in both virtue and quantity from even* point of view. The white man, with few exceptions, has blindly followed his red brother's tobacco trail, the only deviation being that the white man builds a shed to shelter his tobacco from the storms, while his red brother hung his tobacco on the bushes or in the peak of his wigwam to dry it. To shed the light of science, to group common sense methods, to help the planter out of the uncertain blind way in which he is now groping, is the object of this little book.

The 12th of October, 1892, completes the fourth century since the discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus. At the same time Columbus reports the natives of the new world smoking the dried leaves of herbs which they called tobac, rolled in the leaves of maize. There have been many speculations and suppositions indulged in, that the Chinese or the Hindoos or the Persians had a knowledge of tobacco before its discovery by Columbus. But neither Moses, Herodotus, Pliny or Josephus, or any historian previous to the discovery of America, gives us any light on this subject. It is therefore safe to believe that tobacco is a native of the Western Hemisphere, and from here it has spread over the face of the whole earth, among even- kindred, tongue and condition of mankind. It numbers among its devotees the highest type of civilized and enlightened men, as well as the lowest and most barbarous; even' age, sex and condition use the exhilarating weed. The edicts of crowned heads, the bulls of popes, the assembled wisdom of legislative bodies, the stern commands of parental authority are all alike powerless to even check its use in the slightest degree. The dread of present or future punishment has no terrors for the man, woman or child who has once tasted the seductive weed. Much has been written about the effect the constant use of tobacco has on the human race. So far the testimony is neutral. There is no evidence going to show that any race of men are less hardy or have abated in mental calibre during the four hundred years of the constant use of the weed. When we come down to individuals, there are as manv centenarians who have smoked and chewed tobacco as can be found among the abstainers. Many die young who never use tobacco, and many live to a ripe old age who have used the weed from their youth up. That it is harmful to the human race collectively there is no evidence; believing this to be so, we think it highly commendable to give the weed to those who love it in its best form and at the least cost. This shall be our aim, and if our plans are followed, we will give a choice chew, a choice smoke and a choice cigar at the price now paid for the cheap, poor stuff, which forms the bulk of the goods now on the market, which are exceedingly unwholesome and give no pleasure to the man who uses them. The evil lies mainly in a bad system by which the leaf is cured, while the faulty system has nothing better than custom to recommend it.

Chapter I

The successful growing of tobacco pays the planter a better price for his labor and expenditure than any other field crop. The uncertainty of the crop hedges it about with a mystery. The difference between a crop handled right and a crop equally good in the field and handled wrong is so great that many times it appears to the uninitiated like gambling, when the facts are the planter had all the cards in his hand to win his money, but failed to do his part at the right time and lost. That the business of tobacco growing can be reduced to a science and made as sure as the production of any other crop grown in our fields the writer feels certain. During the last five years tobacco raising has been made plain and has been tested by thousands of planters in five different States, and in no instance made known to us has there been a single failure to obtain good results when the planter followed our advice. This has been so uniformly the case in all parts of the country and in all varieties of tobacco that we are fortified in the belief that we have found the true science of growing and curing tobacco; and furthermore we have greatly reduced the cost and simplified the process of the manufacture of plug, smoking tobacco and cigars. Let no man think a crop of tobacco can be grown without care of the right kind bestowed at the right time; vigilance always is the price paid for a good crop of tobacco. " Intensive farming " is the kind of farming that will give the best results always in the cultivation of tobacco. It will pay better to grow fifteen hundred pounds on one acre than to grow sixteen hundred on two acres, — the plowing, the suckering, the topping, the worming, and the gathering consume twice the time and only one-sixteenth more tobacco of an inferior grade.

Chapter II

" He that goeth forth bearing good seed shall return with joy and bring his sheaves with him." This was a subject well understood in King David's time, and is as true now as then. To ignore this great underlying principle is to court failure in all crops.

The first great requisite is good seed of the right variety. If a planter thinks any kind of seed will do as well as any other he has made a failure in the beginning of the crop. Blood tells on the race course; the " two-thirteen " trotters are not bred from scrubs, neither sire nor dam.

The dairyman seeks carefully for the pure-bred Jerseys and Devons when he wants a large yield of milk and butter; the wool grower seeks the pure-bred merinos for a heavy fleece of wool, or southdowns for heavy quarters of mutton; the pork raiser has long since learned that a bushel of corn returns him twice the money fed to a Poland China or a Jersey Red swine of pure breed than when fed to a bush hog with his ears set in the middle of his back. Rust-proof oats, fulcaster wheat, Bullock seed corn, all tell the planter that it will pay him to look well to the quality and variety of his tobacco seed ; the seed should be renewed every two or three years.

The seed should be brought from the shorter to the longer season; from the colder to the warmer. Never from the south northward if it can be avoided. If the planter saves his own seed from his own crop, let him save only the most vigorous plants, and then only the earliest pinnacles and but few of them on each stalk. A man is safe if he allows Col. R. L. Ragland to send him his seed every year; his postofrice is Hyco, Va. ; "the world buys tobacco seed of him." If you wish to grow tobacco exclusively for plug or choice chewing tobacco, the Hester, the Orinoco, or Gooch are varieties which have stood the test of time, and are favorites with many planters. The writer's experience has been satisfactory with the Hester; for cutters the Hyco and the White Stem stand at the head for South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. For cigars, the Zimmer Spanish, when

IO

cultivated and cured right, has few superiors in texture and none in flavor; it will produce twelve hundred pounds per acre. The Connecticut seed leaf stands at the head for wrapping cigars, and will probably never be excelled for that purpose ; when it is cured in the Snow Barn the Sumatra wrapper takes a back seat. The Cumstock Spanish is also highly spoken of as a fine grower, and gives satisfaction to the cigar maker and smoker. The Havana seed leaf is grown by Col. Ragland, and as he is a scientific seed grower it is safe to get his seed. If the writer was growing tobacco in States south of Virginia, we would depend on that latitude for our seed, as it would travel in the right direction, from the north to the south; its vitality and time of maturity would be quickened by each remove towards the equator.

Chapter III. Plant I5eds

The tobacco plant differs in some respects from most others in this: it grows faster, matures quicker, and produces richer leaves when pulled up and transplanted, than if the seed were planted like corn or beans and allowed to stand and grow where planted; hence the universal custom of growing the plants in hot beds or seed beds. The seed of the plant is the smallest known to the husbandman; a single ounce contains eight hundred and seventy-five thousand seeds; if every seed should produce a plant, one ounce would furnish plants for one hundred and seventy-five acres, counting five thousand plants per acre. The plant question is a very important one with the planter, and his best effort is put forth to obtain good plants for his first setting, and should be as early as the season in his latitude will allow and escape late frost. The plan most in use in Virginia is too seek the bank of some small creek in some sheltered spot, and burn the ground over with trash wood to the depth of two inches, and rake in the ashes with manure; thoroughly pulverize the top of the soil, and sow the seed and cover with canvass. This is done about the first of January, when the plants will be set the first of May. While this plan is a cheap one, and does well for Virginia and North Carolina, there are a great many who wish to grow tobacco that are not blessed with a creek running through their farms, and the uncertainty of the beds getting the attention needed at the proper time, while the plant bed is so far from home, the writer is inclined to adopt a more sure way, which is the hot-bed system, right at home, where the beds can be watched and watered at will, and kept back or forced as the planter wills. In this way the planter commands success; he can put forth his hand and grasp it ; and while his neighbor is scouring the country buying plants from his neighbors, and setting his crop with ever>' known variety, which will not give him a uniform crop either in the field or curing barn ; hundreds fail here at the start. The failure in a tobacco crop can as often be traced to the plant bed as to any one cause. Knowing by hard experience the importance of these facts, we say to every planter who expects to follow tobacco growing, construct at once a hot bed of the most approved pattern, in the most convenient and sheltered place about your building. The sash should have about six inches fall in three feet facing the south. For convenience the bed should n< ^ be more than six feet wide and as long as needed ; fill the bed within six inches of the top with sandy loam, well mixed with well rotted manure and guano; do this in the month of November. Give the bed a thorough wetting, and put on the sash, and grow your weeds and destroy them before you sow your tobacco seed.

About the first of February, for Georgia and South Carolina, sow your seed, gel a straight edge two inches wide and make a very slight mark on each side of the strip, and scatter the seed along tin- edge of the strip on both sides, then turn the strip over; don't sow too thick, nor cover too deep; in fact do not cover at all, but pat the top of die ground with a plank with your weight on it. When the plants come up the) can be thinned out if too thick or re-sowed if too thin. If the plants are likely to be too early, they can be kept back by taking off the sash or by shading with plank if the sun is too strong in the day time; if they are too -low they can be quickened by a liberal sprinkling of warm water, leached through horse stable manure. The point is to have the right kind of plants at the right time at all hazards, and a plenty of them. This is the first important step to take if you would make money growing tobacco. In taking plants from the beds, which is called drawing "plants" great care should be taken not to injure the stem by bruising: do not press the bud which is in the middle of the plant; if the bud is bruised in any way the plant is useless: the product if any, must come from a sucker below the bud. and will be inferior tobacco. The plants when four inches high are ready for setting. In the preceding chapter we strove to impress upon the planter the necessity of having good seed, and plenty of stocky plants at the first setting: by stocky plants we mean plants that have not been grown so thick in the beds as to give them a long slender shank. In the following chapter we show the necessity of having: or OOC i so ji

13 CHAPTER IV.

GOOD SOIL NECESSARY.

To grow less than one thousand pounds of tobacco on a single acre is not good farming, and twelve hundred pounds should be the rule in Georgia and South Carolina. It is thought necessary in Virginia and North Carolina to have virgin soil to grow a good crop of tobacco. This plan has been practised until these states have been largely denuded of their forests, and their hill sides seamed with gullies, and strange to say their planters are not rich. Cutting down a crop of timber and burning it in log heaps to obtain a crop of tobacco is paying dear for a whistle; too much sugar for a shilling.

Good rich tobacco can be grown on old land ; it is being done in South Carolina every season, and it can be done elsewhere. There is a reason why new soil is better than old land. The only one I can give is the top soil is full of vegetable mold; this element is lacking in old land. We have got back to first principles now; the soil is lacking vegetable matter, nothing left but silica of the primeval rock, which in itself is unable to sustain plant life, although pulverized by the forces of nature if unmixed with vegetable matter, its fertility is wholly wanting. This want is starving one half of the farmers in the world; without this, no man need try to grow good tobacco. In this vegetable mold lies the chemistry of all plant food; the humus, the very life of the tobacco plant. It is useless to coax Mother Earth with nostrums; don't think to feed the hungry soil by dusting it with guano applied with a spoon. It is "just over the hill to the poorhouse" with such farmers, whether they grow tobacco, cotton or corn. This fact being established beyond any controversy, and we have set out to grow a good crop of tobacco, not less than one thousand pounds per acre.

If vegetable matter is lacking in the soil which the planter finds otherwise suitable let him sow cow peas and turn them under; work with it two years in this way; get three crops of peas into the soil by that time, with three hundred pounds of guano to the acre; then try a crop of tobacco, and if you will plow in your tobacco stalks and suckers before the heavy frosts kill them you can continue to grow heavy tobacco year after year on the same ground. By returning the old stalks to Mother Earth much of the elements required for the new stalks are found in the old in a concentrated form; the decomposition of the woody elements go to form the humus needed, and with a quantity of woods mold added each year tobacco equal to new land tobacco can be grown year after year without any deterioration; or if the planter has two fields a crop of cow peas every other year, and a crop of tobacco every other year, with the tobacco stalks plowed in, will keep the crop equal to new land tobacco; and it fertilized with guano twelve hundred pounds of good tobacco should be the yield per acre.

This method of obtaining vegetable mold in the soil is less expensive than cutting the timber, and clearing new land, and for common plug tobacco the product is all that is desired. Let the planter bear in mind that vegetable mold is an indispensable requisite to the perfection of the tobacco plant, and without it failure is the rule.

Fortunately for the average fanner, it is the cheapest fertilizer he can obtain; having selected a field with a sandy top soil with a clay base from four to six inches beneath. If the subsoil be yellow all the better as this color is supposed to impart its peculiar properties to the tobacco grown upon it. In our judgrrient, however, if this color has the right grit, it is extremely friable when disturbed by the subsoil plow, and absorbs and holds the rain a few inches below the surface, where it is available in dry time. The sandy soil lets the rain fall through and the clay arrests its passage, and holds it for future use; this kind of soil has given the best results in all parts where tobacco has been grown. Land of this description should be turned over with a turning plow T about the first of January, again in the middle of February. At the second plowing the subsoil plow should be used about eight inches deep in the furrow\ immediately behind the turning plow. Do not turn up any of the subsoil. This winter plowing destroys the pupa of the black cricket which produce the cut worm, a great pest when the plants are young. The chrysalis of the bud worm will be disturbed at the same time, and left where the frost will put an end to them; besides the winter plowing is as good as a coat of manure, as it gives the frost a chance to thoroughly pulverize the lumps in the soil. In the winter time when little else can be done the compost heap must be made. If we are to grow a crop of ten acres we want a big heap.

We want all the stable manure we can get. We will bed our stock with litter of leaves and loam so as to lose none of the sig or liquid manure. We will get all the nitre we can into our compost heap. We will haul woods, mold or top soil from our timber land and use cotton seed if we have it; we will put all kinds of manure, but wood ashes. We will keep them out of our compost and apply them broadcast. After we think we have enough compost we will get a few more loads for fear we may be short, as we have started to get twelve hundred pounds per acre, we cannot afford to fail. A few days before we are ready to set our plants, we will lay off our rows four feet apart with a turning plow, and put out our compost by scattering it liberally in the furrows, and cover the same by throwing the soil back. We will run our rows when practicable, north and south ; this will give every plant in the field equal chance to the sun, both morning and evening; the rows should be four feet apart to give ample room for the gathering of the leaves with baskets, and to get the sun to the roots of the plants, also to run the cultivator after the plants are well grown and not bruise the leaves, as they are very susceptible to injury while in the green state. W r e shall crowd the plants in the row to about twu feet as we must get twelve hundred pounds per acre, and we must have at least five thousand plants. We want four ounces from each plant. The leaves must be normal and shapely as only such are the delight of the buyer. To get such, both rich and abundant, we give them plenty of room between the rows, and crowd them a little in the rows. When we are ready to set our plants, we run a bull tongue through our ridge of compost and scatter commercial fertilizer about three or four hundred pounds to acre along the ridge, and mix with the soil by running: the bull tongue- two or three times through each ridge. When done the plants can be set.

i6

Chapter V Setting Out The Crop

Having found the right soil amply filled with vegetable mold; having plenty of good stocky plants about four inches high, well seasoned to the open air by leaving the top of the bed open for a few days and nights, and no fear of late frost, we will proceed to set out our crop. This should be done all at one time in the same field if possible, as the setting of crop at different times militates greatly against the curer, as there will be a corresponding difference in the time of ripening of the leaves. This should be avoided if possible on at least ten acres which will be the capacity of one Snow barn. The acreage designed to be cured in one barn sin mid be all of one variet) of tobacco and all set at one time and cultivated the same, This is important as will soon be found by the curer when he puts the heat on his toba< i When real;, to set we run a bull tongue hack and forth in the ridges two or three times to mix the guano with the soil. This guano is to start the young plant, giving it courage, causing it to make large calculations in the first start. Not less than twenty leaves are demanded of each plant. They will not ealculate so many on a low diet when young. We are expecting twelve hundred pound- of good tobacco from each acre, and have a good show for more. It we set our plants by hand we must wait for rain or we must water each plant by hand. A man goes ahead with a basket filled with plants and drops one

on the ridge every two feet or twenty inches apart. A g 1

hand behind him picks up the plant sticks his peg in the ground, and makes a hole about two inches deep; sets his plant in the hole, resets his peg and pushes the dirt against the roots of the plant, and goes on to the next. Care should be taken not to cover the bud of the plant with soil, nor press the dirt too hard at the top around the neck of the plant, as any bruising or strangling is ruin. Care should be taken to keep the rows straight, and the bud of the plant near the surface of the ground. This is called hand setting, and it is not easy work and requires skillful, active men. Some men can set three acres in a day. If set with a Bemis transplanter the process is quite another thing; the plants are as well or better set in dry weather as in wet. The machine is hauled by two horses, carries the driver, a cask of water, and two boys, each with a basket of plants hung before him. The plants are set and watered, one row at a time. Five acres can be set in ten or twelve hours, and the work better done than is possible by hand, even with the most skillful hands. One machine costing about one hundred dollars will set the crop of a dozen planters, and in the quality of the work alone will pay its cost every year if fully employed. It will pay the planter to buy one as the setting of the crop right, and at the right time, is one of the necessary steps to insure success. With this machine the farmer chooses his own time, whereas the hand setting is often faulty. If the time for setting happens to be dry the planter is either compelled to wait for rain or water by hand, which is very tedious, and if set in very wet weather the ground is apt to form a crust around the neck of the plant, and it will not grow until the soil is loosened with the hoe.

Chapter VI. Worming And Cultivating The Crop

The plants now being set they must be constantly cared for, as they have many enemies. If provision is not made for their protection the work of the planter will come to nothing and his labor lost. The most destructive of these enemies is known as the horn worm, which if left to himself, will utterly destroy the crop, leaving only the bare stalks and stems standing in the field. Some seasons they are worse than others, but it is never safe to neglect full preparations for their destruction which is easily done if taken in time, but very difficult and expensive if neglected; but must lie done at any cost. The horn worm is hatched from eggs deposited by the Hawk moth on the top side of the leaves as he flits from plant to plant during the night, never in the day time. Like the owl he seeks dark and shady places during the day, and at the setting of the sun, lie starts out in quest of his supper, which he is very anxious to get before he goes to work; like Artemus Ward who said, "If I have much wood to chop before breakfast, I always eat my breakfast first." The eggs then deposited on a leaf of tobacco will hatch and eat a hole through the leaf in about fifteen hours, and in three or four days will destroy a whole leaf and go on to the next one. It is estimated that a single fly will lay one hundred eggs in one night, and as many as five hundred eggs have been counted in the egg pouch of a single moth after being killed. Their favorite food is the honey found in the blossom of the Jamestown or Jimpson weed.