356 TOBACCO LEAF. 



color, though when first cleared the surface soil has a 

 darkish hue, derived from the presence of vegetable 

 matter. It, however, soons becomes gray when inter- 

 mixed by cultivation with the subsoil, which is usually 

 yellow, sometimes gray, occasionally red, or brown ; in 

 contexture it is a clayey sand, though in certain areas 

 clay predominates and it becomes a sandy clay. The 

 timber growth is long and short leaf pines, with a 

 subordinate growth of oaks of several kinds and hickory, 

 and an underbrush of gum, dogwood, huckleberry, 

 honeysuckle and trailing vines. Oaks predominate on 

 clayey, and pines on sandy soils. 



The soils in the Champaign or Tidewater districts 

 of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, suited 

 to the growth of bright, yellow tobacco, have an open, 

 sandy texture and light gray color, with a yellow, 

 clayey, or sandy subsoil, well drained, naturally support- 

 ing such tree growth as has been mentioned. These 

 are not considered fertile soils. Indeed, a crop of ten 

 bushels of corn, without fertilization, or 300 pounds of 

 seed cotton, to the acre is a fair yield for them. They 

 are all drift or transported soils, made up of decom- 

 posed, or comminuted rocks of the midland district, 

 that have been brought down and ground up, leached, 

 sifted and sorted. The oxides of iron and clay in finer 

 particles have been carried out to the ocean in rapid, 

 glacial currents, leaving behind the heavier and coarser, 

 sandy material. This gives the essential conditions that 

 determine their fitness for the production of yellow 

 tobacco, warmth and thorough drainage, aided by the 

 negative conditions of the absence of iron, humus and 

 an excess of clay. 



The late Professor Kerr, from whose careful obser- 

 vations many of these facts are drawn, asserted that the 

 early ripening of the plant was a notable peculiarity of 

 the growth of tobacco in the Champaign district. The 



