Then a second hogshead, without a bottom, would be set atop the first and likewise filled, and then perhaps a third, when the whole stack would be put under blocks and levers compressing the contents into the one hogshead at the bottom, which when headed up was ready for market.

Oftentimes a crop was not cured enough for prizing until the next crop had been planted.

Meanwhile the spare time of the gang was employed in clearing new fields, tending the subsidiary crops, mending fences, and performing many other incidental tasks.

With some exaggeration an essayist wrote, "The whole circle of the year is one scene of bustle and toil, in which tobacco claims a constant and chief share."[22] [Footnote 22: C.W.Gooch, "Prize Essay on Agriculture in Virginia," in the _Lynchburg Virginian_, July 14, 1833.

More detailed is W.W.Bowie, "Prize Essay on the Cultivation and Management of Tobacco," in the U.S.