534. 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Choose a warm, protected place for the seed-bed; 

 dig iu autumn ; leave it till February, then manure it 

 well with rape-cake and pigeon's dung (here they do it 

 at a cost of 43. 2d. per rod !), and dig it in very shallow. 

 Rake it very fine, and invariably between the 10th and 

 25th of March sow your seed, mixed with sand or 

 ashes ; cover it with branches to keep off wind and froit, 

 and if there is no wall, surround it ou three sides with 

 straived hurdles set up endways. You must also have 

 a small bed sown ten days later, to produce plants to fill 

 up blanks. From the moment of sowing, daily care is 

 required ; protection from grubs, weeds, sun, wind, 

 frost, and drought. One-and-a-half rods of bed are 

 required for every acre planted. 



The field for planting must be free from trees ; tobacco 

 likes not shade. Prepare the ground as well as passible ; 

 it cannot be too fiae : among other good reasons, it 

 better bears a dry season. Liquid manure and guano 

 are not allowed to be used by Government, as the whole 

 cultivation of this plant is regulated by law. Only a 

 certain number of acres are permitted to be grown in 

 proportiun to the size of the farm. Rape-cake is the 

 best manure ; it produces the handsomest and best fla- 

 voured tobacco : an acre requires three tons of it, and 

 eighteen loads of dung. 



Planting begins on the 25th of May, and it should be 

 proceeded with as quickly as possible, as the later plants 

 do not ripen so well as the others. To regulate the 

 spaces they use wire chains, the links of which are 16 

 inches long, as that is the distance the plants should be 

 apart, and the rows 20 inches. They arc not allowed to 

 plant thicker than 19,200 to the acre, nor thinner than 

 12,800. In dry weather you must not begin to plant 

 till 2 o'clock ; and if very hot, a small handful of wet 

 chaff must be put to each plant, to remain for three 

 days. The next operation is to mould them up. In 

 about a month the heads are nipped off, leaving only 

 eight leaves — requiring a skilful workman. This seems 

 to promote suckers, which must be removed three or 

 four times as they appear. la the beginning of Septem- 

 ber the harvest commences. Women strip the plants of 

 the leaves, laying them in the next row already done, 

 dividing the smaller ones from the others, as they are 

 dried separately. A few hours are iufficient to pre- 

 pare them for stringing into " garlands," and they are 

 then ready to be carried to the drying-house. This is 

 the most important part; on this greatly depends the 

 quality and classification of the leaves. Six " garlands" 

 are hung on a rod, and these rods are placed on other 

 rods, which run the whole length of the shed ; here they 

 are protected from rain or damp, and constantly attended 

 to, for twenty-five to forty days, according to the weather. 

 You then choose a fine day to remove it to the granary, 

 where it must be carefully surrounded with a wall of 

 straw, to keep out the damp or air as much as possible. 

 The delivery of the tobacco to the Government factory 

 at Lille commences at the beginning of January and ends 

 in March; to effect this, the leaves must be sorted into 

 four classes, and tied in bundles of fifty leaves each, and 

 fifty bundles make a truss, tied with osiers. All leaves 

 which have suffered from rain, hail, or imperfect drying, 



are classed as unsaleable. The average weight of five 

 years' growth, from 1849 to 1853, in the district by Lille, 

 was 24 cwt. to the acre. M. Lecal considers it by far 

 the most profitable crop the farmer has. It strikes me 

 it would be still more so in England. 



The Government buys all, and fixes the prices annu- 

 ally : last year they were ll7s., 92s., and 61s. per cwt. 

 for first, second, and third classes. An ancient convent 

 of immense size in Lille is applied to the manufacture ; 

 it employs 350 workmen and 400 women. The French 

 tobacco is never used alone ; it is mixed with all other 

 sorts. The process of manufacture is very simple : 

 Cleaned, sorted, heaped with strong brine and well 

 heated, cut by a chaff-box, dried, damped and heated 

 again, and packed. The cigars are the women's work. 

 It all takes some time, but the snuff is the longest. 

 After undergoing various processes fur six months, it 

 remains for a year iu immense heaps of forty or fifty 

 tons each, to acquire a scent, which it has not before. To 

 be more minute would be uninterestiug ; suffice it to 

 say little or no machinery is required, and had we the 

 liberty, I am sure the farmers of England would imme- 

 diately try it, and, I believe, with every chance of suc- 

 cess. Why not, if it at.sjvers so well here ? 



Another favcjurite growth is flax. I will send you a 

 more dttailed account of it, as that is open to us, and I 

 know the prejudice against it. Now all expenses of 

 farming here are so similar to ours, that their profits are 

 not a bad test if there is any advantage in adopting their 

 crops. 



I am anxious not to lose a day in forwarding to 

 you the information I have obtained on the growth of 

 sorgho, a plant which I believe will, in a very short 

 time, become one of general cultivation in England, 

 with great advantage to all stock-keepers, producing 

 more food per acre than any other summer crop, and 

 of a more fattening nature than any of our present 

 produce grasses or soiling plants ; equally good for 

 horses, " cattle" both grazing and store, cows, sheep, 

 and hogs; eagerly devoured by all, sheep perhaps liking 

 it the best ; and improving as well the quality as the 

 quantity of the milk and butter. Cows that have had 

 half-a-cwt. per day give a quart more milk per day. 



So much do I think of it, that I shall leave no means 

 neglected which may lead to the distribution of the seed, 

 with instructions for sowing. The outlay of a few pence 

 for sufficient to try its qualities and capabilities in En- 

 glish soils is so trifling, that I should think no one who 

 reads your journal will neglect to embrace the oppor- 

 tunity I offer of so easily acquiring a knowledge of this 

 valuable plant. 



I admit we have not had many useful new crops in- 

 troduced into England during the last twenty years, or 

 which realized the anticipations caused by the flattering 

 character given them at the first, such as trifolium and 

 many others ; but that is no reason for not making in- 

 expensive trials when we are enabled to do so. One of the 

 most useful seeds we could desire would be for an inter- 

 mediate crop between the harvest and following spring. I 

 do not say such is sorgho, but it may be so. If sown in 



