s afterwards. The
price is high, varying from twelve to twenty-eight dollars per crate;
and is paid in ten monthly installments. In Persia, when the tobacco
is fit for packing, the leaves are carefully spread on each other, and
formed into cakes four or five feet round, and three to four inches
thick, care being taken not to break or injure the leaves. Bags of
strong cloth, thin and open at the sides, are provided, into which the
cakes are pressed strongly down on each other. When the bags are
filled they are placed in a separate drying house, and are turned
every day. Water is then sprinkled on the cakes, if required, to
prevent them from breaking. The leaf is valued for being thick, tough,
of a uniform light yellow color, and of an agreeable aromatic smell.

In Turkey, the tobacco after remaining in the dwelling-room of the
house a sufficient time, is ready for baling. The bales average in
weight about forty _oques_ (110 English pounds). The covering of the
bales is a sort of netting made by the peasants from goat's hair; it
is elastic and of great strength. Vamberry says of packing tobacco in
European Turkey:

"The tobacco is packed in small packets (_bog tche_), and
only after it has lain for years in the warehouses of the
tobacco merchants, is it honored by the connoisseurs of
Stamboul with the title of 'Aala Gobeck.' This sort of
finely-cut tobacco resembling the finest silk, is held in
equally high estimation in the palaces of the Grand
Seignior, in the seraglio, and in the divan of the sublime
Porte, where the privy council debate the most important
affairs of the empire, under the soothing influence of its
aromatic vapors."

In St. Domingo and the United States of Colombia, South America, the
bales are called _Serous_, and in Holland and Germany, Packages.
Tobacco is sent to market in bales of various sizes and made of
various materials. In Cuba, the tobacco is bound with palm leaves. In
South America it is packed in ox hides. From the East it comes in
camel's hair sacks or "netting made from goat's hair," while from
Persia, tobacco is exported in sacks of strong cloth. Manilla tobacco
is shipped in bales containing four hundred pounds net. It is covered
first with bass and then with sacking, made of Indian grass tied
around with ratan. Each bale contains a printed statement, of which
the following is a copy:

PROVINCIA DE CAGAYAN,

PARTIDO