112 



desirable varieties, the latter liked by many experienced and careful 

 growers. That grown in Boone County for exportation ranks high as a 

 chewing-tobacco. 



ROTATION. 



A sort of irregular rotation is to some extent practiced in the Con- 

 necticut Valley. In the vicinity of Hartford it is customary to take off 

 from one to three crops of tobacco, then a hay or grain crop, followed by 

 grass for several years. Lower down the valley rotation is observed to 

 some extent, and the general testimony accords therefor better returns. 

 Our Hampden (Massachusetts) authority deems the quality better if 

 repeated crops are taken. 



In the Onondaga (New York) district a clover-sod, with a good spring 

 growth, and fifty to sixty loads of manure per acre, all well turned under 

 and reduced to a fijie tilth, is the favorite soil for tobacco-planting. Wheat 

 is the next crop. Sometimes crops of tobacco are repeated, with eighty to 

 one hundred loads of manure per acre, but more than two or three crops 

 are indicative of bad farming. In Steuben the preferred order is clover, 

 corn, tobacco. In Lancaster, which county produces a large proportion 

 of the crop of Pennsylvania, tobacco is preceded by corn and followed 

 by wheat. The rotation in York is similar. Quite uniform Maryland 

 X^ractice is to follow tobacco with wheat. In Calvert County it is grown 

 every third year, the crops being clover, tobacco, wheat. It is preferred 

 in Charles to have it follow corn rather than "a fresh fallow." New land 

 in Fcederick, after a crop of tobacco, is sown to wheat, then grass. Three 

 crops are sometimes taken from new laud in Montgomery, but further 

 continuous cropping results in larger plants of inferior quality. The 

 regular three-year rotation is generally practiced in Prince George's, 

 though some planters prefer the four or five year plans. Where new 

 laud is taken for tobacco iii Virginia, two or three consecutive crops are 

 usually taken, followed by wheat, afterward clover or grass. In old 

 ground the common rotation is clover, tobacco, wheat; in some counties 

 wheat precedes tobacco ; where only two fields are used, which get all 

 the manure from stables and cattle-pens, the crop is only alternated with 

 wheat. Corn comes in between tobacco and wheat in Patrick. In some 

 counties a year or two of fallow comes after wheat ; in other counties a 

 similar rest follows two or three consecutive crops of tobacco on new 

 land. New land is preferred in North Carolina, and soils peculiarly 

 desirable for particular kinds and qualities of tobacco are selected with 

 great care. No attempt at rotation is reported from Florida. A sys- 

 tematic course of cropping is by no means the rule in Tennessee. Wheat 

 is most frequently grown after tobacco, but corn or other crops some- 

 times occur in succession. On new land wheat is sometimes grown 

 between two crops of tobacco, followed by a similar period in corn, 

 wheat, and clover. Old ground is manured for the tobacco-crop. Fer- 

 tilizing for tobacco is virtually unknown in West Virginia. Wheat, as 

 elsewhere, is usually adopted for the succession, followed by clover, on 

 the best managed lands ; but the more careless farmers follow with pro- 

 miscuous cropping until the land is exhausted and turned out to grow 

 mullein, pennyroyal, and rag- weed. Some sort of rotation is deemed a 

 necessity in Kentucky, though some counties do not practice it; itisheld 

 that to grow the crop " on the same ground two or three years in suc- 

 cession would everlastingly ruin it;" also that it cannot be successfully 

 grown on timothy-sod ; but that it may be cultivated in successive crops 

 by sowing rye and turning under in spring when a foot high. The pre- 

 ferred course appears to be tobacco, wheat, clover ; if longer, two years 



