TOBACCO FIELDS, 1620. 



51 



the trees about a yard from the ground, lest they should 

 shoot again. "What wood they have occasion for they carry 

 off, and burn the rest, or let it lie and rot upon the ground. 

 The land between the logs and stumps they hoe up, planting 



VIRGINIA TOBACCO FIELD, 1620. 



tobacco there in the spring, inclosing it with a slight fence of 

 cleft rails. This will last for tobacco some years, if the land 

 be good ; as it is where fine timber, or grape vines grow. 

 Land when hired is forced to bear tobacco by penning their 

 cattle upon it ; but cowpen tobacco tastes strong, and that 

 planted in wet marshy land is called nonburning tobacco, 

 which smoaks in the pipe like leather, unless it be of a good 

 age. When land is tired of tobacco, it will bear Indian Corn 

 or English Wheat, or any other European grain or seed with 

 wonderful increase. 



" Tobacco and Indian Corne are planted in hills as hops, 

 and secured by worm fences, which are made of rails sup- 

 porting one another very firmly in a particular manner. 

 Tobacco requires a great deal of skill and trouble in the right 

 management of it. They raise the plants in beds, as we do 

 Cabbage plants; which they transplant and replant upon 

 occasion after a shower of rain, which they call a season. 

 When it is grown up they top it, or nip off the head, succour 



