“The object of heaping up the tobacco is to produce a second fermentation, so as to equalize the colour of the leaf and wear out of it that excess of gluten or resinous matter which is natural to the plant; this fermentation makes the leaves more silky and ductile, and gives them a more agreeable flavour. The place for making the heaps should be prepared beforehand, in one or more of the rooms of the tobacco-house, by making a kind of box lined with _yaguas_ (sheets of palm-tree bark) at the bottom and the sides, the base is a boarding on which should be placed a sufficient quantity of dry plantain leaves, which serve as a bed for the heaps. “In the months of April or May, when the rainy season commences, the poles which are on the highest pegs of the scaffolding should be taken down and placed somewhat apart, one from the other, on the lower pegs. The doors of the house should be left open at night, so that the humidity from the atmosphere may enter, and when, in the morning, the tobacco is found to be soft and silky, it is fit to be placed in heaps. The pairs of leaves should then be collected in armfuls, with all the bits of stalks placed in one direction; the leaves that may be found doubled or crooked should be smoothed out, and each armful should be placed in layers in the heaps, placing the first layer at the bottom with all the woody pieces of the stalk touching the _yagua_ which forms the sides of the case; other layers should be placed with the stalk reversed, and in this manner, crossing the leaves, the pile should be raised up level. When a pile has a sufficient height, another, and another, is made until the tobacco is finished or the case is full, so that each heap may form a compact mass of leaves protected by the pieces of stalk all round, which should never touch the leaves, but only touch each other. When the heaps have been thus made, they should be covered with dry plantain leaves, or palm skins, and, in front, by palm leaves. “Tobacco should not be packed thus when it is too damp, because a very strong fermentation would ensue, which, if kept up longer than necessary, would pass to putrefaction. The tobacco only requires to be soft, or flexible, before packing, so as to produce a certain degree of heat, neither is it convenient to pack tobacco when too dry, for then it would not ferment at all, nor would any beneficial results be produced. When it has been packed sufficiently soft, it undergoes after the second or third day a degree of heat of 110° to 120° F. in the centre of the heap, and if it does not acquire this degree of heat it is because it has been packed too dry.