SOWING TOBACCO SEED 465 



timber furnishing protection from cold and winds. If new 

 land cannot be had, then newly broken sod is commonly used. 

 Cultivated land should be used only when no other is avail- 

 able; but, if it must be resorted to, it should be well fertilized 

 the previous fall with barnyard manure or tobacco stems 

 and the soluble elements allowed to leach into the soil during 

 the winter. The manure or stems should then be raked off 

 in the spring and the bed treated as a new one. 



During the winter, the bed should be burned over to 

 make the soil friable and to kill all weed seeds and insects. 

 These purposes are usually accomplished by piling brush and 

 logs over the bed and burning them. A low, steady fire is 

 more effective than a high, quick one. The soil should be 

 thoroughly heated to a depth of several inches. 



The size of the bed is naturally governed by the acreage 

 to be planted. Enough plants can be produced on from 75 

 to 100 square feet to plant an acre, but it is safer to have 

 from 150 to 200 square feet of bed for each acre to be planted. 

 This space gives much more opportunity for the selection of 

 the best plants. The most convenient shape for the plant 

 bed is one about 3 feet wide and as long as may be necessary, 

 for this width makes it easy to reach to any portion of it from 

 one side or the other. 



635. Sowing the Seed. As the seed is very small, it is 

 usually mixed with dry wood ashes or some other fine mate- 

 rial to give bulk and insure even distribution. A teaspoon- 

 ful of seed will sow from 200 to 300 square feet of bed. Be- 

 fore sowing, the light and immature seeds should be blown 

 out with a tobacco-seed grader, as the larger, heavier seeds 

 give much better plants. The date of seeding depends 

 largely on the date of the latest spring frost. In order to 

 have the plants ready for setting in the fields as soon after 

 this date as possible, the seed should be sown about two 

 months previous. This necessity requires March seeding m 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, while the seed is sown in 



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