[Preferring Flues to Charcoal]
Dublin Core
Title
[Preferring Flues to Charcoal]
Creator
Unknown
Source
http://addison.vt.edu/record=b1775388~S1
Publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Date
July 1875
Contributor
Kelly Holler, Michelle Seref
Rights
Permission to publish images from The Gray Jacket must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
Identifier
LD5655.V8 L4, ser.1, v.1, no.1 (July 1875), p.6
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
Three reasons for preferring flues to charcoal for curing tobacco. —First: It does not endanger health. But it does just about as much good to talk about health to robust young men aspiring to wealth, as it does to talk to young girls about reading the bible, unless they are sick. In using flues the laborer is not compelled to be in the heat and smoke, except to examine the state of things. This, however may be avoided by having the Thermometer suspended on a wire extending across the house, and attached to another, by means of which it can be drawn to a small glass window, to be examined and then pushed back again. In curing with coal, the laborer must be in the barn from the time he begins to yellow the leaf until the stem is dry; thus necessitating great fatigue and loss of sleep. He is compelled to breathe an impure atmosphere, for whenever charcoal is burnt, a poisenous gas, Carbon Acid is liberated. This gas being heavier than air, collects in abundance near the floor, and being colorless, can only be detected by its effects. The quantity of gas is increased by shutting out tho common out-door current, which would insure free and rapid diffusion.
It is said that the young French Chemist, Berzelius, who resolved to give his life as speedily as possible, to the science of Chemistry, shut himself up in a small, tight, room where this gas was generating and calmly noted the percentage in the air he breathed and the effects which he experienced.
Two per cent caused inconvenience in breathing, five per cent, stupor, and from the best evidence that could be had, ten per cent proved fatal.
In the second place, less fuel and labor are required in using flues. It is well known to planters who have tried both that the wood consumed in burning coal for curing one barn woud be sufficient for two having well arranged flues. And it needs no argument to show that, to procure this additional amount of wood and burn the coal requires more labor than to run the flues
Lastly: The work is so comparatively free from the smut and dust arising from using coal that a North Carolina planter who invented an excellent arrangement of flues and pipes, called it the "Ruffle-Shirt Fruit and Tobacco Curer."
I have looked at a man who cures with coal for sometime without being able to tell whether he was naturally or artificially black. Leaving out the question of taste I would refer any one who may have any cavils on this point to their washer-women,
It is said that the young French Chemist, Berzelius, who resolved to give his life as speedily as possible, to the science of Chemistry, shut himself up in a small, tight, room where this gas was generating and calmly noted the percentage in the air he breathed and the effects which he experienced.
Two per cent caused inconvenience in breathing, five per cent, stupor, and from the best evidence that could be had, ten per cent proved fatal.
In the second place, less fuel and labor are required in using flues. It is well known to planters who have tried both that the wood consumed in burning coal for curing one barn woud be sufficient for two having well arranged flues. And it needs no argument to show that, to procure this additional amount of wood and burn the coal requires more labor than to run the flues
Lastly: The work is so comparatively free from the smut and dust arising from using coal that a North Carolina planter who invented an excellent arrangement of flues and pipes, called it the "Ruffle-Shirt Fruit and Tobacco Curer."
I have looked at a man who cures with coal for sometime without being able to tell whether he was naturally or artificially black. Leaving out the question of taste I would refer any one who may have any cavils on this point to their washer-women,