176 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



not been in the habit of putting any phosphates in the hill. 

 I put everything on broadcast, mix it up well, and turn two 

 furrows together. My rule is to plant on those ridges, from 

 twenty-two to twenty-four iuches apart, and the rows three 

 and one-half feet apart. My great error, in the first place, 

 was in not setting the plants far enough apart. When the 

 tobacco leaves grow from thirty-five to forty inches in length, 

 and from twenty to twenty-four inches broad, they fill the 

 field pretty thick, and it is impossible to get through the field 

 to worm it, to sucker it, to top it, and to go through the va- 

 rious processes we have to put it through. 



When the plants get up to a certain height, I have adopted 

 a new plan in regard to the lower leaves. I found by close 

 examination that the lower leaves of my plants, where they 

 grow so large, were of very little value. I found they were 

 dirty, torn, and a great many of them broken off, and when 

 the spearer went through them and strung them, if he strung 

 them by the leaves entirely, he would generally break off sev- 

 eral more of them. I am in the habit of stripping off these 

 lower leaves, when the plant gets up to a certain height, as 

 useless leaves. If they are left on the plant they consume a 

 good deal of nutriment which, if they were not there, would 

 pass up the stem, and give m'e bigger leaves and more of 

 them. I take off from two to three leaves, in order to enable 

 the man who hoes to go along without being obliged to 

 stoop and hold up those leaves. They are large leaves, 

 but they really come to nothing, and when we get the hoeing 

 done those leaves are out of the way and the plant seems to 

 grow more rapidly above, because it has not to supply those 

 lower leaves with nutriment. 



The point of time to top tobacco, or the height to which it 

 should be done, is very difficult to be described. The most 

 general rule I can adopt or describe to you, is this: top down 

 to a good leaf, and if the color of the plant is yellow above, 

 be sure to cut down plump to a good leaf. We are apt to top 

 too high. I tried an experiment upon my field, at the sug- 

 gestion of some tobacco raisers. About a quarter of an acre 

 was topped some two leaves higher than I usually top. They 



