REPORTS ON CROPS. 295 



harvested. Topping is done when the plants show blossom, 

 breaking off by hand down to where the leaves are six or 

 eight inches wide ; suckering is next, to keep off all branches 

 shooting from the axils of the leaves, up to harvesting. 

 When the tobacco is ripe, which is known by the change in 

 color of the leaf, it is cut with a tobacco knife of some favor- 

 ite sort, left on the ground to wilt so that it can be handled 

 without breaking the leaves, then strung on lath, 5 or 6 to a 

 lath, carried to the barn on a suitably arranged wagon, and 

 the ends of the lath placed on scantling arranged for their 

 reception, so that the tobacco will hang without crowding, 

 that the air may circulate freely among it to cure it. Atten- 

 tion must be given to ventilation of the tobacco barn, that it 

 may cure propei'ly. When cured so that when damp no juice 

 comes from the stem when crushing, or there are any green 

 stems, &c., it must be taken down, bulked and stripped, as- 

 sorting as stripped into wrappers, seconds and fillers, each sort 

 done up in hands separately and so kept. A great deal de- 

 pends upon the neatness and care taken in all the necessary 

 manipulations of the tobacco crop for its selling qualities. 

 Tobacco is sold in bulk or cased in boxes, 375 lbs. each, 

 boxes 3|- ft. by 2^ ft. square, inside measure. 



Tlie yield varies greatly according to the soil and culture, 

 from 1200 lbs. to 2500 lbs. per acre. Growers on the river 

 road average about 2000 lbs. per acre, and for a few years 

 past have sold to average 40 cts. per pound. From 1^ acres 

 we received $1,574.80 last season. The culture of corn is 

 similar to that adopted throughout the state, the main ferti- 

 lizing being in the hill. An 8-rowed yellow variety is the 

 kind generally raised ; with very few exceptions the corn crop 

 is subordinate to tobacco, the profits of one acre of tobacco 

 buying the products of many acres of corn or other kinds of 

 grain ; yet nearly every farmer grows some corn, as well as 

 other leading farm and garden crops. Our hay crops are sufficient 

 to winter what stock we can summer and give a surplus for 

 sale ; especially is this true of the farms next the river. Con- 

 siderable hay is sold from our meadows, the annual floods 

 serving in good degree to keep up fertility. 



