From the August,
1916, issue of The Southern Planter
Editor Southern Planter
I have been growing the weed for over 50 years. Soon after
engaging in the work I decided that there were better dates than others for
cutting tobacco off the hill. For many years I studied this theory until
finally I was successful in locating a fact.
To explain: Tobacco has an oily substance which is rampant
in the weed at intervals and if you happen to cut your tobacco when full of
this oil, of course, it is bound to cure up nicely with a heavy body and be
what we call “waxy.” Oil and water won’t mix and when the sap rises, as it does
at intervals, it pushes the oil out at the pores of the leaves and if taken
then the tobacco will be minus any oil and will cure up “chaffy” and be light
and worthless.
It is very important that tobacco be cut when oil is in it.
Some days those who work in tobacco will become waxed up with a gum, then other
days they only get a little stained, this being on account of the varying
conditions of tobacco through the oil and sap stages.
You have experienced cutting tobacco one week and have
excellent luck and then when you cut a week or 10 days later, off the same
piece of land and with riper tobacco, and have no luck at all with it.
--R.V. Davis, Davie
County, N.C.
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