The Cuban tobacco planter, according to Davis, “would force the drying in wet weather and retard it in dry weather, as either extreme is injurious; the wet is injurious, as the leaves, when they change from the natural colour to a pale yellow and light brown, easily mildew; when dry, as before-named, it is taken down. Damp weather is best, so as not to break the leaves, which are immediately stripped from the stalks and sorted into as many grades as the market may require, from one to four and even more grades, as ‘bright yellow, dull, seconds, and ground-leaves.’ But I see no necessity for but three grades, as the over-ripe, the unripe, and the just ripe at cutting, and when properly dried they show their grade plain enough to sort. After being stripped and sorted, they are to be separately piled (‘bulked’ some say) in courses of leaves—2, 4, or 6 tiers of leaves, stems end out, and 3–4 feet high. The leaves should be kept straight in all these handlings. The heap should be made up each day separate, as it begins to make tobacco in 12 hours or so, by fermenting, which is variously called ‘curing,’ ‘sweating,’ ‘conditioning,’ &c. Soon as the heap begins to get warm it should be re-piled, putting the inner tier out so as to equalize the fermentation; some re-pile several times and some none; but the fermentation should be kept equal, and if covered with old sail-cloth it can be regulated. This fermenting is allowed to proceed for 4–6 weeks by careful manufacturers; as it is the process that makes the tobacco to suit the taste of tobacco-epicures it should be carefully done, yet many do it in a careless manner, and thus have an article so poor as to not find many lovers. At the end of the 4–6 weeks the Cuba grower would have one side of each leaf slightly moistened with the decoction of tobacco, which is made by letting some leaves rot in clean water, and then he would tie it up in hanks of 25 or 30 leaves, and hang one day for drying, then take it down and pack it in tight casks as being best. From these leaves he would make the best Cuba cigars. The Virginian grower would not wet his tobacco after it had fermented, but simply tie it in hanks so that 5 or 6 would weigh a pound, and then pack it in his hogsheads for market; and this, after it had lain from one to six months in the ‘conditioning bulks.’”