e most perfect system of ventilation. The most substantial and
finest tobacco sheds are to be found in the Connecticut valley, which
are provided with every convenience for hanging and taking down or
"striking" the crop. Many of them are painted and adorned with a
cupola, which serves the double purpose of an ornament and a
ventilator for the hot air to pass off from the curing and heated
plants. Formerly, the tobacco being harvested was hung in barns and
sheds, used for storing grain and hay, and better adapted to other
purposes than to that of a tobacco shed, where thorough ventilation is
necessary to avoid sweat and pole-rot, attending upon the curing of
the plants. Of late, tobacco growers, throughout the world, have paid
considerable attention to the method of curing, and to erecting more
suitable buildings for the purpose. At the South and West, the log
tobacco barns are giving way to the more substantial frame buildings,
and better facilities are employed for "firing" the tobacco in the
sheds. Formerly, the tobacco sheds at the South looked more like the
rude huts of the herders on the pampas of South America, than
buildings devoted to the curing of tobacco. Tobacco barns and sheds
are built of a great variety of material, and in various ways,
according to the manner of building where the tobacco is grown. Thus
in the Connecticut valley, such sheds or barns are large and
commodious frame buildings; at the South and West, many of them are
built of logs; in Cuba, of slabs covered with palm leaves or thatched.
In Turkey, of stones covered with rough boards, and daubed with mud.

[Illustration: Old Connecticut tobacco shed.]

In selecting a site for the tobacco shed, not only should its
proximity to the tobacco field be considered, but also the ground on
which it is to be built. It should always be erected on dry ground,
rather than upon moist, so that no dampness may arise and injure the
leaves in curing. The tobacco shed should also be built on an elevated
spot, so that a free circulation of air may be had, which is hardly
possible if built on low ground or among trees or in the woods as at
the South. This applies more particularly to sheds where the method
of curing is by air-drying instead of by "firing" or by "flues." In
New England the strongest timber, as oak, is used for building, as the
weight of the plants before fully cured is immense. The shed is braced
at every point and generally rests upon stone posts