tobacco from molding in damp weather. During the War of 1812 there was a considerable shift to fire-curing owing to the demand in Europe for a smoky flavored leaf. Fire-curing not only gave tobacco a different taste, but it also improved the keeping qualities of the leaf. The fire dried the stem of the leaf more thoroughly, thus eliminating the major cause of spoilage when packed in the hogshead for shipment.

August and September were the favorite months for cutting and curing because the tobacco would cure a brighter color if cured in hot weather. Even today farmers like to finish curing their tobacco as early in September as possible. However, it was usually cold weather before all of the crop could be cut and cured. Occasionally frost would kill part of the crop before it was ripe enough to cut.

In the early years of the tobacco industry there was little to the stripping process as the leaves were hung on strings to cure. The string was removed and the leaves were twisted and wound into rolls. The leaves were twisted by hand or spun on a small spinning machine into a thick rope, from which a ball containing from one to thirty pounds was made, though some were known to weigh as much as 105 pounds. The rolls were either wrapped in heavy canvass or packed in small barrels for shipping. In 1614 four barrels containing 170 pounds each were sent to England on the Sir Thomas. Tobacco was also shipped loose or in small bundles known as hands, and by 1629 a considerable number of hogsheads were being used.

There seems to have been little grading in the early days. London Company officials frequently complained of the bad tobacco being mixed with the good, and early inspection laws required that the tobacco be brought to central locations and the mean tobacco separated from the bulk. After cutting became the common practice the leaves were stripped from the stalk and assorted according to variety and grade. By the 1680's the lowest grade was known as lugs. Sweet-scented and Oronoco were usually exported separately, and usually only the sweet-scented was stemmed. If the two varieties were mixed in a hogshead, it was purchased at the prevailing Oronoco prices, which were less than those paid for sweet-scented. The English merchant claimed that he had to sell all of it as Oronoco unless it were separated and that the cost of the labor required to separate it was equal to the higher price the sweet-scented would bring. These two varieties were probably seldom mixed except perhaps to fill the last hogshead of the season. The planters eventually came to realize the value of handling tobacco with care, for when good tobacco land became less plentiful, other means of improving the quality of tobacco became necessary.

By 1665 most of the tobacco was shipped in hogsheads, but it was not until 1730 that the shipment of bulk tobacco was prohibited. Nor were the hogsheads made to any standard size until 1657, at which time they were required to be 43" × 26". In 1695 the standard size was raised to 48" × 30", and this remained the standard size until the 1790's. In 1796 the legal size was increased to 54" × 34"; this remained the legal size until the 1820's. The weight of the hogshead increased from time to time. In 1657 a hogshead of tobacco weighed about 300 pounds, 600 in the 1660's, 800 by 1730, 950 by 1765, and around 1,000 in the 1790's. These were supposed to have been the standard or legal weights, but regulations were not strictly enforced. As early as 1757 some of the hogsheads weighed as much as 1,274 pounds. By 1800 hogsheads averaged about 1,100 pounds.

Varieties

A complete story on the origin of the early varieties of tobacco would be a very significant contribution, since very little is known about them. Most writers agree that the tobacco cultivated by the English settlers was not the same Nicotiana rustica grown by the Indians, but Nicotiana tabacum, the type found growing in South America and the West Indies. The difference between these two types was profound, both in taste and size. The plant native to Virginia was small, growing to a height of only two or three feet, whereas Nicotiana tabacum grew from six to nine feet tall. As to taste, George Arents remarked, "the same difference in taste exists between these two species, as between a crab apple and an Albemarle pippin."

All during the colonial period tobacco was classified into two main varieties, Oronoco and sweet-scented. Oronoco had a large porous pointed leaf and was strong in taste. Sweet-scented was milder, the leaf was rounder and the fibers were finer. We are also told that sweet-scented grew mostly in the lower parts of Virginia, along the York and James rivers, and later on the Rappahannock and on the southside of the Potomac. Oronoco was generally planted up the Chesapeake Bay area and in the back settlements on the strong land along all the rivers.

Oronoco is thought to have originated in the vicinity of the Orinoco River valley in Venezuela. After being brought to a different environment and climate in Virginia, various varieties or strains of Oronoco were developed or came about naturally. In the late 1600's a very fair and bright large Oronoco, Prior, and Kite's Foot were mentioned. As the years passed planters came to distinguish other varieties such as Hudson, Frederick, Thick-Joint, Shoe-string, Thickset, Blue Pryor, Medley Pryor, White Stem, Townsend, Long Green, Little Frederic, and Browne Oronoco.

A type of tobacco referred to locally as "yellow", had been growing on the poor, thin, and sandy soils in and around Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and Caswell County, North Carolina since the early 1820's. It was just another one of the many local varieties and attracted little attention until a very lucky accident occurred in 1839. A Negro slave on the Slade farm in Caswell County, North Carolina, fell asleep while fire-curing tobacco. Upon awakening, he quickly piled some dry wood on the dying embers; the sudden drying heat from the revived fires produced a profound effect—this particular barn of tobacco cured a bright yellow. This accident produced a curing technique that soon became known throughout the surrounding area in Virginia and North Carolina. This tobacco became known as "Bright-Tobacco", and this area the "Bright-Tobacco Belt".

The many variations were due to the different environments, cultural practices, methods of curing and breeding; and each of these variations was given a name because of some particular quality it possessed, or was given the name of a person or place. The difference in the composition of the "Bright-Tobacco" grown in the poor sandy soil, such as that found in Pittsylvania County, caused the tobacco to cure bright. This so-called new type of tobacco was of the old Virginia Oronoco and if grown on heavier soils, it produced a much heavier bodied tobacco and would not make the same response when flue-cured. Only the tobacco grown in the soils such as that in the "Bright-Tobacco Belt" cured bright, which indicates that it was the soil and not the variety that caused the tobacco to be bright when cured.

The origin and development of sweet-scented tobacco remains somewhat of a mystery, and we can only make conjectures as to what happened. Some authorities hold that the present day Maryland tobacco is descended from the sweet-scented of the Colonial days, while others believe it to be a descendant of Oronoco. It seems quite possible that there was only one variety of Nicotiana tabacum when John Rolfe first began his experiments, and there is reason to believe that this first tobacco was sweet-scented. The name Oronoco probably came after the name sweet-scented had already been established. It also appears that sweet-scented