The main features of the Culp process are, he said, to let the tobacco, when cut, wilt on the field; then take it at once to the tobacco-house and pile it down, letting it heat on the piles to 100 degrees for Havana.  It must, he thinks, come to 100 deg., but if it rises to 102 deg. it is ruined.  Piling, therefore, requires great judgment.  The tobacco-houses are kept at a temperature of about 70 degrees; and late in the fall, to cure a late second or third crop, they sometimes use a stove to maintain a proper heat in the house, for the tobacco must not lie in the pile without heating.

[Illustration:  INDIAN CRADLE, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.]

When it has had its first sweat, it is hung up on racks; and here Mr. Culp’s process is peculiar.  He places the stalk between two battens, so that it sticks out horizontally from the frame; thus each leaf hangs independently from the stalk; and the racks or frames are so arranged that all the leaves on all the stalks have a separate access to the air.

The tobacco-houses are frame buildings, 100 x 60 feet, with usually four rows of racks, and two gangways for working.  On the rack the surface moisture dries from the leaf; and at the proper time it is again piled, racked, and so on for three or even four times.  The racks are of rough boards, and the floor of the house is of earth.

After piling and racking for three weeks, the leaves are stripped from the stalk and put into “hands,” and they are then “bulked,” and lie thus about three months, when the tobacco is boxed.  From the time of cutting, from four to six months are required to make the leaf ready for the manufacturer.

“Piling” appears to be the most delicate part of the cure, and they have often to work all night to save tobacco that threatens to overheat.  Mr. Culp thinks the dryness of the climate no disadvantage.  I was told that they find it useful sometimes to sprinkle the floors of the tobacco-houses.

I saw racks, too, in the fields—­portable, and easily carried anywhere; and on these a great quantity of Florida tobacco, used for chewing and smoking, had been or was getting cured.  It was piled in the field where it was cut, and the whole curing process, up to “bulking,” is carried on in the open air.  Havana “fillers” they also cure in the field, as the fine color is not needed for that.

Mr. Culp thought his method of horizontal suspension allowed the juices from the stalk to be carefully distributed among the leaves.  He told me that a fair average crop was about 1500 pounds of Havana, or 2500 pounds of Florida, per acre, of merchantable leaf.  In favorable localities this was considerably exceeded, he said.  For chewing-tobacco, the cut plant is piled but once.

For four hundred acres of tobacco, about one hundred and twenty-five Chinese were employed in cutting and curing.  After planting and up to the cutting season they had but fifty men employed.  The Chinese receive one dollar a day and board themselves, living an apparently jolly life in shanties near the fields.