572 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
completion of this operation and “Jack one thing yet,” if it be not now 
properly manipulated. 
Therefore, go yourself, brother planter, into your barns, see with your 
own eyes, and not through the medium of others ; handle with your own 
hands, and know of a surety that the tobacco hanging on the tier-poles is 
in proper order for “striking” and “bulking,” and act accordingly. 
When, later on, it is being “stripped,” “sorted,” and tied into bundles, 
or “hands,” as they are often called, be there again, propria persond, to 
see that it is properly classed, both as to color and to length, the “lugs” 
going with lugs, the “short” with short, the “long” with long, &e. 
Instruet those sorting that when in doubt as to where a particular leaf 
should be put to put it at least one grade lower than they had thought 
of doing. Thus any error will be on the safe side. 
Prize in hogsheads to weigh what is usually called for in the market 
in which you sell, and, above all, “let the tobacco in each hogshead be 
as near alike as possible, uniform throughout, so that the ‘sample,’ from 
whatever point if may be taken, can be relied on as representing the 
whole hogshead,” and that there be left no shadow of suspicion that 
“nesting” has been attempted, or any dishonest practice even so much 
as winked at. . 
We sum up the whole matter by repeating: __ 
1. That overproduction, the production at all, of low grade tobacco 
is the chief cause of the present extremely low price of the entire com- 
modity. + 
2. That the planters of the United States have the remedy in their 
own hands; that remedy being the reduction of area, this reduction to 
result, from the employment of the means here suggested, in increased 
crops; and, paradoxical as it may seem, these increased crops to bring 
greatly enhanced values. 
The whole world wants good tobacco, and will pay well for it. Scarcely 
a people on earth seeks poor tobacco or will buy it at any price. 
In a word, then, one acre must be made to yield what it has hitherto 
taken two or three acres to produce; and this double or treble quantity 
must be made (as, indeed, under good management it could not fail to 
be) immeasurably superior in quality to that now grown on the greater 
number of acres. 
Hither this or the abandonment of the crop altogether—one or the 
other. ; 
Planters, ‘“‘ Choose ye, this day, whom ye will serve.” 
LOCALITIES BEST SUITED FOR MATURING SEED. 
By PETER HENDERSON, Jersey City Heights, N. J. 
Seed-growing is now getting to be one of the industries of the United 
States, as it has long been that of Europe. Our great variety of latitude, 
soil, and climate is such that in many things we are now supplying 
Europe with that which a few years ago we imported; and I think 
it is safe to predict that in a majority of the seeds of the garden the 
balance of trade will ultimately be in our favor, as it is now with a ma- 
jority of the seeds of the farm. 1 say a majority, for as seed-growing is 
a matter of latitude, there always will be some kinds that will attain 
perfection better in Europe than America, particularly such seeds as 
require alow temperature for perfect development. Hence, whenever a 
