FARM CROPS. 161 



5. Suncured tobacco, raised in a small way in Vir- 

 ginia. 



6. Perique, grown only in a single parish of Louisi- 

 ana. 



Planting and Growing. The methods of planting 

 and growing the different types are much alike, but the 

 method of curing is different for each. The seed is 

 sown in beds, which are protected from the spring 

 frost by glass or cotton cloth covers, and which have to 

 be carefully watered, weeded and aired. 



When the danger of frosts is past and the land is 

 warm, the young plants, a few inches high, are care- 

 fully pulled from the bed and transplanted by hand or 

 machine into the field, which has been thoroughly pre- 

 pared by plowing and harrowing, and often by liberal 

 dressing with manure or fertilizers. The plants are 

 set in rows from three to four feet apart, and they 

 stand from twelve to twenty-four inches apart in the 

 row. 



The land is cultivated very thoroughly and often, 

 and the crop protected from worms of various kinds 

 which prey upon it. 



The plants are not allowed to blossom and produce 

 seed, for this would take the strength from the leaves, 

 which are the only valuable part of the plant. So the 

 flower bud is broken off from the tip of every plant in 

 the field soon after it appears, and also the suckers or 

 side branches, which begin to grow as soon as the 

 flower buds are taken off. 



Harvesting. When the best leaves on the plant are 

 ripe, the crop is harvested. Sometimes the whole 

 plant is cut down at the surface of the ground and 

 afterwards strung on a lath which is thrust through 

 the split stalk, five or six plants being strung on a lath, 

 and these are hung, tops down, on poles fastened in the 

 tobacco barn at the proper distance apart. Another 

 way of harvesting, commonly practiced with the cigar 

 wrapper leaf, is to pick the leaves from the plants 

 standing in the field as they ripen, beginning at the 



