67 



mon black bii2^ found in great numbers under wheat 

 shocks, &c. This worm is seldom or never found in new 

 land, but abounds in old or manured ground ; and in 

 some 3^ears I have seen them so numerous, as to have 

 from forty to fifty taken out of one hill in a morning. 

 The alternatives are either to abandon the crop, or to go 

 over the ground ever}^ morning, when they can be found 

 at or near the surface, and destroy them. The missing 

 hills to be regularly replanted. 



" The horn-worm is produced from a large, clumsy, gray- 

 colored fly, commonly seen late in the evening sucking 

 the flowers of the Stramoniun or TJiorn-aj^ple, or com- 

 monly called here the Jamcstoicn iveed. The flies deposit 

 their eggs in the night on the tobacco, ^nd all other 

 narcotic plants indiscriminately, as Irish potatoes, toma- 

 toes, &c. In twenty-four or thirty-six hours the eggs 

 hatch a small worm, which immediately begins to feed 

 on the leaf, and grows rapidly. Great care should be 

 taken to destroy them while young. Turkeys and Guinea 

 fowls are great auxiliaries in this business, but the evil 

 might be greatly lessened if the flies where destroyed, 

 which can easily be done in the night by a person walk- 

 ing over the ground with a torch and a light paddle. 

 They will approach the light and can easily be killed. 

 In this way I have known a hundred killed in one field 

 in the course of an hour. 



" Tobacco has been reproached as the cause of the gen- 

 eral exhausted condition of our lands, of the slow-paced 

 improvement in the Virginia system of agriculture ; in 

 short, as the bane of all good husbandry. The stigma 

 is, I am persuaded, in a great measure unmerited. It 

 is true, that, like Indiaji corn, from the frequent and high 

 degree of tillage it requires throughout the summer, it 

 exposes the ground to be washed by hard rains, and 

 evaporated by the hot sun ; but the plant in itself is less^ 

 an exhauster than corn or wheat. A proof of this is to be 

 found in the superior growth and perfection to w^hich 

 any crop will arrive when grown after tobacco, than 

 after anything else, not excepting clover that has been 

 plowed in. Perhaps this may be accounted for from the 



