should be used, in all the handling, not to bruise, break, or tear the leaves. Having cut all, excepting your seed-plants, strip all the leaves from these, and set a stake to each to tie it up to; let the stake be a foot taller than the plant; it will answer to keep a piece of old carpet from breaking down the stalk when you wish to cover it up on cold nights. Let the seed-plants stand till the pods or bolls are cured to a brown, and the seed is ripe; then cut off the top of the seed-stalk, and hang it up in some dry and safe place, where it will be ready to shell and use the next season; only the ripest and best pods should be used.” Libhart alludes to the existence of several ways of hanging cut tobacco plants, but specifies the two following as the best and shortest: “first, splitting and hanging it upon laths or poles and leaving it to partially cure in the field; secondly, nailing it to rails with lathing-nails, at once in the shed. The former method, for high northern latitudes, is by far the best, as it will cure in a much shorter time (and thus prevent the destruction of the crop by freezing in the shed), by the drying of the pith of the stalk, which is the main reservoir of moisture. It is performed as follows:—Have a chisel about 1 foot long and 3 inches broad, the sharp end not bevelled on one side, but coming to an edge by a gradual taper on both sides (a common tenon-saw will do pretty well); place the edge of the chisel in the centre of the stalk upon the end where it has been topped, and push it down, guiding it in its course so as not to break or cut off any leaves, to within 3–4 inches of the ground; the stalk may then be cut off with a hatchet, or with the chisel if it be made pretty strong. The splitting may be done in the morning when the leaves are too brittle to admit of the stalk being cut down, and then when the sun has sufficiently wilted the leaves, the stalk may be cut and left to lie until it will bear handling without breaking the leaves. The lath being previously prepared, 4 feet in length and about 1 inch in thickness on one edge, and ½ inch on the other, and 2 inches broad (or poles cut in the forest will answer pretty well); then have trestles prepared high enough to allow the stalks to hang suspended without touching the ground, and set far enough apart in the field to admit of the lath reaching from one to another; now place the stalks of tobacco upon the lath (previously laid across the trestles), by slipping them over and down until they will hang perpendicular and 6–8 inches apart, so they will merely touch, without crowding too much. It may be left hanging thus exposed to the weather until the leaves are so wilted that the stalks hang apart without touching, and the lower leaves begin to dry, when it is taken off the trestles, each lath entire, and laid upon a waggon and hauled to the drying-shed.”