My biggest mistakes were in the growing. I didn't get a handle on worms and other pests in time to make a good crop. What I did make was from the culls I hadn't transplanted into the field. They were at Mamma's and her chickens kept the worms picked off. They stayed in gallon pots too long, but when I saw all the others getting ate, I set them out in the many flowerbeds in her yard. The plants were small, about 3-4 feet for the most part.
At the time I was researching some stories I was writing about early 1700's North Carolina. Since tobacco was such a big part of the landscape then, and I wanted to understand it better, I decided to try their ways of doing things. So I let it wilt for a few hours after picking, then hung on sticks in an old hay barn. When I thought it was ready, I pressed it in a wooden tobacco box that had been handed down in my family. It didn't turn out very good, but I think most of it was just not having healthy plants. I was trying to do about half an acre, which was about .4 acres too many.
Here is a pretty good overview of how it was done back in the day.
https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/tobacco-colonial-cultivation-methods.htm
