SELECTION OF SOIL. 425 



pkced, to exclude the moles. They fill this enclosure to the 

 height of eighteen inches with fresh, coarse manure, which 

 they press closely by beating as they throw it on ; covering 

 with finely pulverized earth mixed with dung of the preceding 

 year that had become soil. They do not regulate their time 

 of sowing either by the moon, month, the season, but by 

 the holy week of the passing year ; it is on Good Friday that 

 all of their beds are sown, and although this day may vary 

 nearly one month in different years, they are faithful to 

 their thermometer their piety not permitting them to know 

 any other. To the mysterious influence of the day r without 

 regard to the season, they ascribe their success and they 

 generally succeed." Bickinson gives an account of the man- 

 ner of making the plant bed in the East Indian Archipelago. 

 He says: "Not far from us is a hut inhabited by two* 

 natives, who are engaged in cultivating tobacco. Their 

 ldd(mgsi or gardens, are merely places of an acre or less, 

 where the thick forest has been partially destroyed by fire, 

 and the seed is sown in the regular spaces between the 

 stumps." 



After making the plant bed and tending through the weed- 

 ing season, the next step to be taken is the 



CHOICE OF 



for tne tobacco fields. Tobacco, unlike any other plant> 

 readily adapts itself to soil and climate. The effect produced 

 upon the plant may be seen in comparing the tobacco of 

 Holland and Prance, the one raised upon low, damp ground, 

 the other on a sandy loam. The early growers of the plant 

 in Virginia, wefe very particular in the selection of soil for 

 the plant. The lands which they found best adapted were 

 the light red, or chocolate-colored mountain lands, the light 

 black mountain soil in the coves of the mountains, and the 

 richest lo'w grounds. 



Tatham says : " The condition of soil of which the plant- 

 ers make choice, is that in which nature presents it when it 

 is first disrobed of the woods with which it is naturally clothed 

 throughout every part of the country; hence in the part* 

 where this culture prevails, this- is termed new ground, which 

 may be there considered as synonymous with tobacco ground. 

 Thus 1 the planter id continually cutting down new ground, 



