found quite
brown, it is tightly pressed and packed up either in boxes or matting
for exportation, or in the bark of the tree plantain, for immediate
sale.

The next process on the tobacco plantation is that of

PRIZING, CASING, AND BALING.

The term prizing originated in Virginia, and as performed by the early
planters, is thus described by an old writer on tobacco culture:--

"Prizing, in the sense in which it is to be taken here is,
perhaps, a local word, which the Virginians may claim the
credit of creating, or at least of adopting; it is at best
technical, and must be defined to be the act of pressing or
squeezing the article which is to be packed into any
package, by means of certain levers, screws, or other
mechanical powers; so that the size of the article may be
reduced in stowage, and the air expressed so as to render it
less pregnable by outward accident, or exterior injury, than
it would be in its natural condition.

"The operation of prizing, however, requires the combination
of judgment and experience; for the commodity may otherwise
become bruised by the mechanic action, and this will have an
effect similar to that of prizing in too high case, which
signifies that degree of moisture which produces all the
risks of fermentation, and subjects the plant to be
shattered into rags. The ordinary apparatus for prizing
consists of the prize beam, the platform, the blocks, and
the cover. The prize beam is a lever formed of a young tree
or sapling, of about ten inches diameter at the butt or
thicker end, and about twenty or twenty-five feet in length;
but in crops where many hands are employed, and a sufficient
force always near for the occasional assistance of managing
a more weighty leverage, this beam is often made of a larger
tree, hewn on two of its sides to about six inches thick,
and of the natural width, averaging twelve or fourteen
inches. The thick end of this beam is so squared as to form
a tenon, which is fitted into a mortise that is dug through
some growing tree, or other, of those which generally abound
convenient to the tobacco house, something more than five
feet above the platform. Close to the root of this tree, and
immediately under the most powerful point of the lever, a
platform or floor of plank is constructed for the ho