Latakia), and thoughout Asiatic Turkey there is an extensive cultivation and export of smoking tobacco.
Manufacture.In the manufacture of tobacco for smoking, we have to do with the numerous forms of tobacco used for smoking in pipes, embracing cut smoking mixtures, cake or plug, and roll or spun tobacco. Under this heading come also the cigar and cigarette manufacture.
The raw material in the warehouses is of various qualities: some is strong, rough, and harsh, and so is unfit for ordinary smoking; other samples are mild and fine, with aromatic and pleasant flavour, but devoid of strength. By a proper mixing and blending the manufacturer is enabled to prepare the smoking mixture which is desirable for his purpose; but certain of the rough, bitter qualities cannot be manufactured without a preliminary treatment by which their intense disagreeable taste is modified. The storing of such tobacco for a lengthened period matures and deprives it of harshness, and the same result may be artificially hastened by macerating the leaves in water acidulated with hydrochloric acid, and washing them out with pure water. The most efficient means, however, of improving strong, ill-tasting tobacco is by renewed fermentation artificially induced by moisture and heat.
Smoking mixtures.The manufacturer having prepared his mixture of leaves, proceeds to damp them, pure water alone being used in the United Kingdom, whereas on the Continent and in America certain "sauces" are employed, which consist of mixtures of aromatic substances, sugar, liquorice, common salt, and saltpetre, &c., dissolved in water. The primary object is to render the leaves soft and pliant; the use of the sauces is to improve the flavour and burning qualities of the leaves used. When uniformly damped, the leaves are separately opened out and smoothed, the midrib, if not already removed, is torn out, except when "bird's eye" cut is to be made, in which mixture the midrib gives the peculiar "bird's eye" appearance. The prepared tobacco, while still moist and pliant, is pressed between cylinders into a light cake, and cut into fine uniform shreds by a machine analogous to the chaff-cutter. The cut tobacco is now roasted, partly with the view of driving off moisture and bringing the material into a condition for keeping, but also partly to improve its smoking quality. The roasting is most simply effected by spreading it on heated slabs, on which it is constantly turned; but such a method does not yield uniform results, and it exposes the workers to a most deleterious atmosphere and noxious fumes. A roasting machine is in use, which consists of a revolving drum in which the tobacco is rotated, gradually passing from one end to the other, and all the time under the influence of a current of heated air passing through it.
Roll tobacco. For roll, twist, or pigtail tobacco the raw material is damped or sauced as in the case of cut tobacco. The interior of the roll consists of small and broken leaf of various kinds, called " fillers"; and this is enclosed within an external covering of large whole leaf of bright quality, such leaves being called "covers." The material is supplied to the twisting machinery by an attendant, and formed into a cord of uniform thickness, twisted, and wound on a drum by mechanism analogous to that used in rope-spinning. From the drum of the twisting machine the spun tobacco is rolled into cylinders of various sizes. These are enclosed in canvas, and around the surface of each stout hempen cord is tightly and closely coiled. In this form a large number, after being cooked or stoved in moist heat for about twenty-four hours, are piled between plates in an hydraulic press, and subjected to great pressure for a month or six weeks, during which time a slow fermentation takes place, and a considerable exudation of juice results from the severe pressure. The juice is collected for use as a sheep-dip.
Cake tobacco.Cake or plug tobacco is made by enveloping the desired amount of fillers within covering leaves of a fine bright colour. A largo number of such packages are placed in moulds, and submitted to powerful pressure in an hydraulic press, by which they are moulded into solid cakes. Both cake and roll tobacco are equally used for smoking and chewing; for the latter purpose the cake is frequently sweetened with liquorice, and sold as honey-dew or sweet cavendish.
Cigars.For cigar-making the finest and most delicately flavoured qualities of tobacco are generally selected. A cigar consists of a core or central mass of fillers enveloped in an inner and an outer cover or robe. The fillers or inner contents of the cigar must be of uniform quality, and so packed and distributed in a longitudinal direction that the tobacco may burn uniformly and the smoke can be freely drawn from end to end. For the inner cover whole leaf of the same quality as the fillers is used, but for the outer cover only selected leaves of the finest quality and colour, free from all injury, are employed. The covers are carefully cut to the proper size and shape with a sharp knife, and, being damped, a pile of them smoothed out are placed together. In making cigars by the hand, the operator rolls together a sufficient quantity of material to form the filling of one cigar, and experience enables him or her to select very uniform quantities. This quantity is wrapped in the inner cover, an oblong piece of leaf the length of the cigar to be made, and of width sufficient to enclose the whole material. The cigar is then rolled in the hand to consolidate the tobacco and bring it into proper shape, after which it is wrapped in the outer cover, a shaped piece made to enclose the whole in a spiral manner, beginning at the thick end of the cigar and working down to the pointed end, where it is dexterously finished by twisting to a fine point between the fingers. The finished cigars are either spread out in the sunlight to be dried, or, where that is impracticable, they are exposed to a gentle heat They are then sorted into qualities according to their colour, packed and pressed in boxes, in which they are stored for sale. Machinery is now employed for forming and moulding the fillings of cigars.
Havana cigars are, as regards form, classification, method of putting up, and nomenclature, the models followed by manufacturers of all classes of the goods. Genuine ("legitimas ") Havana cigars are such only as are made in the island; and the cigars made in Europe and elsewhere from genuine Cuban tobacco are classed as "Havanas." Other brands of home manufacture contain some proportion of Cuban tobacco; and very good cigars may be made in which the name only of that highly-prized leaf is employed. When we come to the inferior classes of cigars, it can only be said that they may be made from any kind of leaf, the more ambitious imitations being treated with various sauces designed to give them a Havana flavour. The highest class of Cuban-made cigars, called " vegueras," are prepared from the very finest Vuelta Abajo leaf, rolled when it is just half dry, and consequently never damped with water at all. Next come the "regalias," similarly made of the best Vuelta Abajo tobacco; and it is only the lower qualities, "ordinary regalias," which are commonly found in commerce, the finer, along with the "vegueras," being exceedingly high-priced. The cigars, when dry, are carefully sorted according to strength, which is estimated by their colour, and classed in a scale of increasing strength as claro, Colorado claro, maduro, and oscuro. They are pressed into the cigar boxes for sale, and branded with the name or trade mark of their makers. Cheroots differ from ordinary cigars only in shape, being either in the form of a truncated cone, or of uniform thickness throughout, but always having both ends open and sharply cut across. Cheroots come principally from Manila, but there are now large quantities imported into the United Kingdom from the East Indies and Burmah.
Cigarettes.Cigarettes consist of small rolls of fine cut tobacco wrapped in a covering of thin tough paper specially made for such use. Originally cigarettes were entirely prepared by the smoker himself; but, now that the consumption of cigarettes has attained gigantic proportions, especially in France, they are very largely made with the aid of an elaborate system of automatic machinery. The machines cut the paper, gum its edge, measure out the proper quantity of tobacco, wrap it up, make the gummed edge adhere, cut the ends, and pack the cigarettes in boxes.
Snuff.The manufacture of snuff is the most complex, tedious, and difficult undertaking of the tobacco manufacturer; but it is an art now of relatively little and of decreasing importance. The tobacco best suited for snuff-making is thick fleshy leaf of a dark colour, the finest qualities of snuff being made with dark Virginia leaf and the Amersfoort leaf of Holland; but manufacturers work up many kinds with fragments from the making of smoking tobacco, midribs, &c. The varieties and qualities of snuff are many, the differences being dependent on the material employed, the sauces with which it is treated, and the method of manufacture. The sauces for snuff consist of solutions of common salt, with various aromatic substances according to the flavour desired in the finished snuff, and with occasional additions of potash, sal ammoniac, and other salts. The following is an outline of the method adopted in making snuff on the great scale in the state manufacture of France. The tobacco leaves are moistened with about one-fifth of their weight of salt and water (sp. gr. 1 089), made up into blocks, and piled in large rectangular heaps, in quantities of 40 or 50 tons. The temperature gradually rises to 140° F., and sometimes reaches 170°; but the heat must be regulated, or parts of the mass would become black as if charred. The heaps are made up in spring and autumn, and the fermentation is continued for five or six months, when the temperature remains stationary or begins to decline. The heap is then opened, and the tobacco is ground, by which means a pale brown dryish powder (rdp6 sec) is obtained. This is mixed with about four-tenths of its weight of a solution of common salt, and is passed through a sieve, that the powder may be uniformly moistened. It is then packed in large open chests in quantities of from 25 to 50 tons, where it remains for nine or ten months, and undergoes another fermentation, the temperature rising in the centre of the mass to 120° or 130°. During this process the snuff acquires its dark colour and develops its aroma. But it is not uniform in quality throughout, and is removed to a second chest, in such a way as thoroughly to mix all the different parts together, and, after the lapse of two months, it is again turned over; and the process is sometimes repeated a third time. When the snuff is ripe, the contents of the various chests are mixed together in a large room capable of holding 350 tons of snuff, where it is left for about six weeks, and the whole mass being uniform in quality is sifted into barrels for the market. The process of manufacture occupies in all from eighteen to twenty months. During these
