PRODUCTION AND COMMEECE. 217 



So important is this operation that it may properly claim 

 more than a passing notice. Not only is it the most 

 tedious, the most unremitting, and the most expensive 

 operation connected with the production of tobacco, but 

 the necessity for it determines more than all other causes 

 the limit of the crop which in general it has been found 

 possible for a single hand to manage. Therefore bring to 

 your aid every possible adjunct in diminishing the number 

 of worms. Use poison for killing the moth in the manner 

 so frequently described in treatises on tobacco, to wit, by 

 injecting a solution of cobalt or other deadly drug into the 

 flower of the Jamestown or 'jimson' weed (Datura 

 stramonium), if necessary planting seeds of the weed for 

 the purpose. Employ at night the flames of lamps, of 

 torches, or of huge bonfires, in which the moth may find 

 a quick and certain death. 



" In worming, spare those worms found covered with a 

 white film or net-like substance, this being the cocoon 

 producing the ichneumon-fly, an enemy to the worm 

 likely to prove a valuable ally to the planter in his war 

 of extermination. 



" Turn your flock of turkeys into the tobacco- field, that 

 they, too, may prey upon the pest, and themselves grow 

 fat in so doing. 



" If these remedies should fail, sprinkle diluted spirits 

 of turpentine over the plant through the rose of a 

 watering-pot, a herculean task truly in a large crop, but 

 mere child's play to the hand-picking process, for the one 

 sprinkling suffices to keep off the worms for all time, 

 whereas the hand-picking is a continual round of ex- 

 pensive labour from the appearance of the first worm 



