322 THE "PLANT-PATCH." 



" A sunny, sheltered spot on the southern slope of a hill is 

 selected, one protected from northern winds by the surround- 



BURNING THE PATCH. 



ing forest, but open to the sun in front, and here the hot-bed 

 for the reception of the seed is prepared. All growth is 

 felled within the area needed, large dead logs are dragged 

 and heaped on the ground as for a holocaust, the whole 

 ignited, and the fire kept up until nothing is left of the im- 

 mense wood-heap but circles of the smoldering ashes. These 

 are afterward carefully plowed in ; the soil, fertilized still 

 further, if need be, is harrowed and prepared as though for 

 a garden-bed, and the small brown seed sown, from which is 

 to spring the most widely-used of man's useless luxuries. 

 Later, when the spring fairly opens, and the young plants in 

 this primitive hot-bed are large and strong enough to bear 

 transplanting, the Virginian draws them, as the New Eng- 

 lander does his cabbages, and plants them in like manner, in 

 hills from two to four feet apart each way. Lucky is he whose 

 plant-bed has escaped the ny, the first enemy of the precious 

 weed. Its attacks are made upon it in the first stage of its 

 existence, and are more fatal, because less easily prevented, 

 than those of the tobacco-worm, that scourge, par excellence, 

 of the tobacco crop. Farmers often lose their entire stock 

 of plants, and are forced to send miles to beg or buy of a 

 more fortunate planter. Freshly -cleared land ' new ground,' 

 as the negroes call it makes the best tobacco-field, and on 



