HALF A MILE LONG

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 24 July 1929, Page 7

HALF A MILE LONG

A GARGANTUAN CIGARETTE ! Cigarette-making machines arei now 60ft and 70ft in length! The prepared tobacco is pub into a large "hopper" at the top and goes through rollers which deposit it on a, canvas band,. absolutely level and of the same thickness. Thence it falls on the cigarette paper, much as rain runs off a. roof into guttering. The machine prints the name on the paper. Through channels and guides the tobacco is distributed oo the endless length of paper; the gumming is dono automatically, electrically dried, and then out comes a cigarette half a mile long. '.As it travels it passes by knives which chop it into the usual lengths, and those pass to a tray lor packing. Packing machines are uncanny in their speed and ingenuity. Feed them with cigarettes at one end and metal "hands" gather the tens or twenties together, foil them, and box them—thousands an hour. There was a time when experts graded cigars according to their colour. A machine docs that now. It literally looks at the cigars—a light shines on each—and with no human aid does the colour or "shade" grading. Four thousand an hour! Give another machine tobacco leaves at one end, and in one operation it makes a complete cigar and discharges it at the other. How? By making machinery imitate exactly the movements made by human hands ir. cigarmaking.