340 TOBACCO LEAF. 



some small areas where the limestones of the Lower 

 Silurian age come to the surface and yield their charac- 

 teristic soil. The drift is composed largely of fertile 

 clays, in which limestone gravel is imbedded. Four 

 kinds, or varieties, of soil are found in this district : 

 1. The native soil formed from the limestones, or bed 

 rocks, of the country. 2. Drift soil of the uplands. 

 3. Black soil of swampy or peaty areas. 4. The alluvial 

 soil of the river and creek bottoms. The native soil is 

 found on the sloping hills that run down to the stream 

 beds. This soil is dark, friable and fertile and very 

 much resembles the bluegrass soil of Kentucky, and it 

 has the same tree growth. ' It is preferred for tobacco, 

 though it washes easily. Tobacco is grown on all the 

 other classes of soil mentioned, but the peaty and allu- 

 vial soils make a coarse, rough article. 



Summarizing the quality of the product as affected 

 by the variety of soils and different exposures in the 

 White Burley districts of Ohio and Kentucky, we find 

 that: 



1. Tobacco grown upon new lands, and especially 

 new oak lands, is thin, light, bright golden in color, 

 gumless and rattles, when handled, like dry fodder. 

 This is the very best cutting leaf. 



2. On the same land the second year the product 

 will be heavier, a cherry red in color, with more body, 

 but with little gum. This is suitable both for cutters 

 and for the manufacture of plug. 



3. Old sod land makes a product of better body, a 

 good absorbent, less light in color, more useful as a plug 

 filler, with a considerable gain in the number of pounds 

 produced on a given area. 



4. Alluvial soils produce tobacco dark in color, 

 rough in feel, bony and lacking in softness, and it has a 

 small absorptive capacity. 



As to exposures, other things being equal, the east- 



