Pursley looks upon stripping as being labour suited to damp weather. He says, “the lugs, shipping, and manufacturing, which are worst, medium, and best qualities, should be separated at stripping. The ‘lugs,’ or worst quality, are found at the bottom of the plant; they are chaffy and light leaves, and should be stripped from the stalk and tied in bundles by themselves with all of the ragged, black, and injured leaves. The second quality, or ‘shipping tobacco,’ is a grade above the lugs; it is the red or brown tobacco; this should also be tied in separate bundles. The best, or ‘manufacturing,’ is the finest and brightest leaves, and should be put in bundles by itself. In stripping, the stems of the leaves should be broken off as close as possible to the stalk; this adds to the weight of the tobacco. In forming a bundle, the butts of the leaves should be placed evenly, and closely together, and pressed tightly in the hand; then a leaf should be folded to form a wrapper 2 inches in width; then wrap it tightly and smoothly around the butts of the leaves, winding it from the end down, about 2½ inches, then open the bundle in the middle, and tuck the wrapper-leaf through the opening, and draw it snug, so that when the opening is closed the wrapper-leaf will remain; this forms a bundle which we call a ‘hand of tobacco.’ The hands should be strung on sticks, and hoisted up in the barn on the tier-poles; 18–20 hands may be put on each stick, at equal distances apart.” Libhart expresses his opinions on stripping in the following words. “At the setting in of a warm, drizzling, wet, foggy spell of weather, the shed must be opened on all sides to allow the damp atmosphere to pervade the whole interior; after the dry leaves have become damp enough to allow handling in any degree without breaking, the stalks must be taken off the lath or pulled down and laid in heaps about 18 inches or 2 feet high, and any desired length; if it is not intended to strip it immediately, it should be conveyed to a cellar or other apartment, where it will remain damp; it should not, however, be suffered to remain longer than 2 or 3 days in heaps, without examination, as there is sometimes sufficient moisture remaining in the stalks or frozen leaves to create heat and rot the good tobacco. If found to be heating, it should be changed about and aired and be stripped immediately. If found to be drying out, further evaporation may be checked by covering the heaps with damp straw or corn-fodder. Tobacco is usually stripped into two qualities, ‘ground-leaf,’ or ‘fillers,’ and ‘wrappers’; the leaves that lie next the ground, generally from 2 to 4, are always more or less damaged by sand beaten on by the rain and other causes, hence they only command about half the price of the good tobacco or ‘wrappers.’ The ground-leaves are taken off first and tied up separately in bunches. With a bunch clasped in one hand, take a leaf and wrap it around