=The Making of a Cigar.= In its manufacture a cigar goes through a process dependent upon the knowledge and skill gained from years of practise on the part of the worker. The tobacco that is used in making the best cigars still comes from the island of Cuba. It is grown very carefully, cured, baled, and shipped under bond to the United States government. The bales as they are received at the tobacco factory weigh from 80 to 120 pounds. The tobacco is of two qualities, that to be used as a filler (which makes up the body of the cigar), and that which is known as the wrapper or the outside covering. From the time that the tobacco begins to grow until the cigars are packed in the boxes ready for shipment the weed requires special care and attention. As the bales of tobacco are brought into the factory they have to be piled in a certain way. Some of them are piled high, some of them low, some on their sides, and some on their ends; all depending upon the quality and conditions of the leaves. The tobacco is cured by a process which adds to its value; and the curing must be carried on with precision, for a faulty method will spoil the best tobacco that can be grown. Any one who has visited Tampa is impressed with the humidity of the atmosphere. The climate of Cuba is more nearly reproduced there than in any other city in America, and because of its equable temperature, it being neither too hot nor too cold, the city has become famous as the manufacturing center for cigars. The cigarmakers sit at long tables in parallel rows throughout the room. In one room in a large factory eight hundred workers sit as close together as possible. The tools of the trade are a flat, broad-bladed knife, a hard block, a gage, and a rule. This gage is simply a hole bored through a piece of board and as the worker makes up the cigar, from time to time he puts it through the hole in the board to see that it is the proper size and places it against the rule to see that it is the proper length. Should it be too large it must be rolled tighter, if too small it must be loosened up a bit. Much depends upon the way a cigar is rolled. “I learned to make a cigar in three months,” said a Cuban cigarmaker, “but it took me two years to learn how to put an end on it.” This is the real test, and until a machine is invented which can turn this trick, the hand-made cigars, rolled, and finished according to the old Spanish method, will hold first place.