In drying the tobacco, all damp air should be excluded, nor ought the drying of it to be precipitated by the admission of high drying winds.  The process is to be promoted in the most moderate manner, except in the rainy season, when the sooner the drying is effected the better; for it is a plant easily affected by the changes of the weather, after the drying commences.  It is then liable to mildew in damp weather, which is when the leaf changes from its original color to a pale yellow cast, and from this, by parts, to an even brown.  When the middle stem is perfectly dry, it can be taken down, and the leaves stripped from the stalk and put in bulk to sweat, that is, to make tobacco of them; for before this process, when a concentration of its better qualities takes place, the leaves are always liable to be affected by the weather, and cannot well be considered as being anything else than common dry leaves, partaking of the nature of tobacco, but not actually tobacco.  The leaves are to be stripped from the stalks in damp or cloudy weather, when they are more easily handled, and the separation of the different qualities rendered also more easy.  The good leaves are at this time kept by themselves as wrappers, or caps, and the most defective ones for fillings, or tripa.  When the tobacco is put in bulk, the stem of the leaves should all be kept in one direction, to facilitate the tying of them in hanks:  afterwards make the bulk two of three feet high, and of a proportionate circumference.  To guard against the leaves becoming over-heated, and to equalise the fermentation or sweating, after the first twenty-four hours, place the outside leaves in the centre, and those of the centre to the outside of the bulk.  By doing this once or twice, and taking care to cover the bulk either with sheets or blankets, so as to exclude all air from it, and leaving it in this state for about forty days, it acquires an odor strong enough to produce sneezing, and the other qualities of cured tobacco.  The process of curing may then be considered as completed.  Then take some of the most injured leaves, but of the best quality, and in proportion to the quantity of tobacco made, and place them in clean water, there let them remain until they rot, which they will do in about eight days; then break open your bulks, spread the tobacco with their stems in one direction, and damp them with this water in a gentle manner, that it may not soak through the leaf, for in this case the leaf would rot.  Sponge is used in Cuba for this operation.  Then tie them in hanks of from, twenty-five to thirty leaves; this being done, spread the hanks in the tobacco house for about twelve hours, to air them, that the dampness may be removed, and afterwards pack them in casks or barrels, and head them tight, until you wish to manufacture them.

The object of damping the tobacco with