WHERE TOBACCO is THE MONEY CROP 143 



on the clover for the tobacco crop, no clover being cut and no pasturing done 

 on it. They have found that on their deep, red-clay soil this rotation has 

 been a great success. One grower wrote that his wheat crop averaged 28 

 bushels per acre and his tobacco cleared him $145 per acre. How long such 

 a rotation can be successfully run it is hard to say. Their soil in that section 

 is very rich in potash, in the form of a silicate, which is gradually made 

 available by the carbonic acid of the rainfall and the humus which they so 

 lavishly grow in the clover; and as the tobacco crop makes a light draft on 

 the phosphoric acid of the sod and the clover furnishes large amounts of nitro- 

 gen, it may be a long time before they will need a change. But the wheat 

 straw is being used to help the manure pile which is used on other parts of 

 the farm, and the land will probably ere long show an acidity that will make 

 it "clover sick." I have advised one of these growers that I am satisfied that 

 his rotation can be improved by cutting the clover for hay, using a good dress- 

 inng of acid phosphate on the wheat, and then using the manure (made from 

 feeding the clover hay) on the sod before turning it for tobacco. A heavy ap- 

 plication of acid phosphate to the tobacco crop direct, might have a bad effect 

 on making the leaf "bony" or thick-veined, but applied to the wheat and 

 clover it would not have any bad effect on the tobacco. In Lower Virginia, 

 where the heavy shipping tobacco is mainly grown, a similar rotation would 

 be good. But there it would be advisable to use both acid phosphate and 

 potash liberally on their lands, and in some sections to substitute peas for 

 clover in the rotation. I would not make a separate rotation for the tobacco 

 lands, from that practiced on the rest of the farm, but would put corn and 

 tobacco in parts of the same field; alternating their position in each round 

 of the rotation. Thus, corn and tobacco the first year, the corn to have the 

 manurial accumulation of the farm, and the tobacco liberally supplied with 

 the fertilizer mixed by the formula already given. Corff and tobacco both to 

 be followed by winter oats or wheat, with 300 pounds per acre of acid phos- 

 phate, and on the portion following corn to have 50 pounds per acre of muri- 

 ate of potash added. The wheat or oats on the part where tobacco was 

 heavily fertilized will need a much lighter dressing of the acid phosphate. 

 Sow crimson clover on the stubble after harvest, and the following spring 

 plow it under and seed to peas to be cut for hay. During the winter get out 

 all the manure on the part intended for corn, where tobacco grew before, and 

 repeat the rotation; in each round putting corn where tobacco grew in the 

 last round and tobacco where the corn grew. Treated in this way, and a 

 complete fertilizer used liberally on the tobacco, the peas and corn fed to 

 stock to make manure, the productive capacity of the soil will rapidly in- 

 crease; and the wheat crop can soon be grown without additional fertilizer 



