their tobacco as
early in September as possible. However, it was usually cold weather
before all of the crop could be cut and cured. Occasionally frost would
kill part of the crop before it was ripe enough to cut.

In the early years of the tobacco industry there was little to the
stripping process as the leaves were hung on strings to cure. The
string was removed and the leaves were twisted and wound into rolls.
The leaves were twisted by hand or spun on a small spinning machine
into a thick rope, from which a ball containing from one to thirty
pounds was made, though some were known to weigh as much as 105 pounds.
The rolls were either wrapped in heavy canvass or packed in small
barrels for shipping. In 1614 four barrels containing 170 pounds each
were sent to England on the _Sir Thomas_. Tobacco was also shipped
loose or in small bundles known as hands, and by 1629 a considerable
number of hogsheads were being used.

There seems to have been little grading in the early days. London
Company officials frequently complained of the bad tobacco being mixed
with the good, and early inspection laws required that the tobacco be
brought to central locations and the mean tobacco separated from the
bulk. After cutting became the common practice the leaves were stripped
from the stalk and assorted according to variety and grade. By the
1680's the lowest grade was known as lugs. Sweet-scented and Oronoco
were usually exported separately, and usually only the sweet-scented
was stemmed. If the two varieties were mixed in a hogshead, it was
purchased at the prevailing Oronoco prices, which were less than those
paid for sweet-scented. The English merchant claimed that he had to
sell all of it as Oronoco unless it were separated and that the cost of
the labor required to separate it was equal to the higher price the
sweet-scented would bring. These two varieties were probably seldom
mixed except perhaps to fill the last hogshead of the season. The
planters eventually came to realize the value of handling tobacco with
care, for when good tobacco land became less plentiful, other means of
improving the quality of tobacco became necessary.

By 1665 most of the tobacco was shipped in hogsheads, but it was not
until 1730 that the shipment of bulk tobacco was prohibited. Nor were
the hogsheads made to any standard size until 1657, at which time they
were required to be 43" x 26". In 1695 the standard size was raised to
48" x 30", and th