412 TOBACCO LEAF. 



when set only 12 or 15 inches apart, this thing is apt to 

 be overdone, and the leaf is likely to be too thin and 

 very liable to damage when curing, especially if unfa- 

 vorable weather occurs. Broadleaf or seedleaf, being 

 used mostly for binders, must be thin, and hence is set 

 about 18 inches apart, but in former times, before the 

 trade was so particular for thin leaf, these varieties were 

 set 26 to 30 inches in the row. Now, if it is desired to 

 get the most wrapper leaves in a crop, plants are set 18 

 to 20 inches for Havana seed, and 22 to 24 inches apart 

 in the row for broadleaf, as a general rule among planters 

 who manure heavily and who are disappointed in much 

 less than one ton of cured leaf per acre. Formerly the 

 rows were four feet apart for Connecticut broadleaf, but 

 three and one-half feet is now the almost universal rule 

 throughout Pennsylvania, New York and Wisconsin, 

 with the plants about the distance apart just mentioned. 

 Cultivation. Abundance of manure does not re- 

 move the necessity of thorough cultivation. Crops 

 often need such treatment very badly where there are no 

 weeds at all. The soil should be kept pulverized and 

 loosened to as great a depth as possible without injury 

 to the roots of the plant, particularly in the early stages 

 of growth. The tobacco crop especially needs thorough 

 cultivation, not so much with the hoe as with the culti- 

 vator, or with other labor-saving machines, care being 

 taken to use only those machines, as the crop advances, 

 that do their work without injury to the fibrous roots, 

 or, in other words, which cut deepest in the center of 

 the row and work closer to the surface near the plant. 

 When plants are set by machine, an attachment can be 

 affixed that will act as a cultivator, thus killing any 

 weeds that may be starting. It is well to go over the 

 field in a few days with a hand hoe and gently loosen 

 the earth around and between the plants. It is the 

 glory of the thrifty planter, not to allow a weed to be 



