TOADFLAX 



5823 



TOBACCO 



FROM TADPOLE TO YOUNG TOAD IN SIXTY DAYS 



Economic Value. At night the toad leaves its 

 hiding place under leaves or stones and ven- 

 tures forth in search of food. It will eat only 

 live grubs and insects, which it snatches up 

 with its sticky tongue and horny, toothless 



SKIN OF THE TOAD 

 It is shed in one piece. 



jaws, and swallows whole. To employ it in a 

 professional capacity as an exterminator of in- 

 sects is a new solution for the bug problem. 

 It is estimated that an average toad is worth 

 five dollars a year to the farmer for the de- 

 struction of cutworms alone. It will also de- 

 vour 100 rose beetles or over fifty army worms 

 at a meal, and at the same time feed on count- 

 less others of the worst bug pests. Even in its 

 infancy the toad is a serviceable little creature. 

 The tadpole eats the slimes of pools and is the 

 best scavenger of stagnant water. E.B.P. 



Consult Dickerson's The Frog Book; Boulan- 

 ger's Reptiles and Batrachians. 



Related Subjects. The reader may refer to 

 the following articles in these volumes : 

 Amphibians Tadpole 



Frog Tree Frog 



TOADFLAX, or BUTTER AND EGGS, a 



weed of the figwort family, with bright yellow 

 flowers and pale gray-green leaves, growing 

 along roadsides and in waste places through- 

 out Central North America as far west as the 

 Rocky Mountains. The flowers, which grow in 

 clusters along the upper part of the stem, are 

 tube shaped, with the edge cut into an upper 

 and a lower lip, the former having two lobes 

 and the latter three. A thick, orange-colored 



ridge on the middle lobe serves to cover the 

 mouth of the tube, and this is forced open by 

 the weight of a bee when it alights on it in 

 search of nectar. Toadflax was introduced into 

 America from Europe, and is an escape from 

 gardens. It belongs to the same family as the 

 snapdragon (which see). 



TOAD 'STOOL. See MUSHROOMS. 



TOBACCO, tohbak'o, a plant of the night- 

 shade family whose leaves have enormous com- 

 mercial value. Tobacco is not, a food, nor can 

 it be said to fulfil any human need, but be- 

 cause its manufactured products are a source 

 of pleasure to great numbers of the human 

 race, it has an established place among plants 

 cultivated for industrial purposes. Its harm- 

 ful effects are discussed in a subhead below. 



The Plant and Its Cultivation. There are 

 several species of tobacco, but that designated 

 as Nicotiana tabacum is commercially the most 

 important. This plant grows from two to five 

 feet high, and bears long, pointed leaves and 

 terminal clusters of rose-colored or pink and 

 white, funnel-shaped flowers. The leaves grow 

 directly from the stalk and vary from twelve to 

 forty-two inches in length. Different soils and 

 climate have more influence upon the charac- 

 ter of tobacco and the quality of the leaf than 

 upon any other cultivated plant. The soils af- 

 fect the color and texture of the leaf and the 

 amount of nicotine it contains. The highly fer- 

 tile, light soil of the blue-grass regions pro- 

 duces the light-colored, mild variety known as 

 white burley ; the red clay soils are best for the 

 dark, heavy types; the light, sandy soil of the 

 "Golden Tobacco Belt" in Virginia produces the 

 yellow variety, and the strong, dark pcrique is 

 grown in the heavy black soil of Louisiana. 



Tobacco is grown from seed sprouted in care- 

 fully prepared beds ; in cold climates the plants 

 are started in hotbeds. The seed is very small, 

 and a handful looks very much like a quantity 

 of finely ground black pepper. In May, that 

 is, about five or six weeks after the sowing, 

 the young plants are ready to be transplanted 



