HEAVY SHIPPING TOBACCO. 305 



fourth working, it is the usual practice to pull off from 

 four to five of the lower leaves, so that the earth may 

 enwrap the stalk without hindrance. Some planters 

 affect to believe that the "priming," as this operation 

 is called, induces a bleeding, or waste, of sap, detri- 

 mental to the health of the plant. This can hardly be 

 true, as it often occurs that two planters living on ad- 

 joining farms will each have a different practice in this 

 particular ; but no evidence has ever been adduced that 

 the yield of the crop per acre has been added to or taken 

 from by either practice. The best and only reason for 

 not priming is, that the lower leaves will protect the 

 upper ones from earth burn, and the spattering of dirt 

 during hard rains. This whole question has been often 

 discussed, and no satisfactory reason has been given why 

 the one practice should uniformly prevail, to the exclu- 

 sion of the other. With all the leaves remaining on the 

 stalk, the plant has more to support. The leaves also 

 afford a refuge for the horn worms. With the lower 

 leaves taken off, a larger proportion of the crop, as 

 housed, will be injured in the way mentioned above. 



It was once almost universal to follow this plowing 

 with a hoe, and make a low, flat hill around the plant, 

 but this has been abandoned as unnecessary work. A 

 few planters "lay by" their crop with this plowing, but 

 all experiments have demonstrated that the product will 

 be the heavier and richer with two or more additional 

 plowings. Even where the tobacco is so large that it 

 may not be plowed without great injury from the break- 

 ing of leaves, a stirring of the surface of the ground 

 around the plants with hoes, especially if the land be 

 baked after heavy rains, is accompanied with highly 

 beneficial results. 



Planters differ as to whether the last plowing should 

 be with a double shovel plow, which leaves the land ap- 

 proximately level, or whether the dirt should be thrown 

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