No. 4.] TOBACCO RAISING. L59 



as fertilizer to put on the land, tobacco was set on the old 

 barnyard, or what had been occupied as the stable, and the 

 only plants on that plot of ground that year were of that 

 description. I have occasionally seen one or two plants of 

 that in a field where the rest of it was of ordinary growth. 



Mr. II. C. Russell (of North Iladley). About forty- 

 five years ago my father sent his boys over the river to buy 

 some tobacco plants, and I went over with my brother, and 

 we bought a bed of plants of a tobacco farmer, and brought 

 them home and set four rows in a field that was prepared 

 for tobacco in the usual way for those days, and then we 

 continued setting the field with our own plants. Those four 

 rows of tobacco, almost every plant was like the sample on 

 the table, and in the row where Ave commenced with our 

 own raising there was not a plant. We never could deter- 

 mine the cause. I think it is something that cannot be 

 explained, like many other things in the growing of tobacco. 

 We obtain certain results from certain causes one year, and 

 the next year w r e obtain similar results from some cause en- 

 tirety different. 



I would like to ask Dr. Jenkins with reference to one 

 point. A good many }^ears ago it was the universal prac- 

 tice for farmers to hang tobacco with twine. Later the 

 system of using lath was tried and adopted by a great man}' , 

 and objection was made to that system for the reason that 

 it split the stalk of the tobacco, and the tobacco cured much 

 quicker, which was generally thought to be detrimental to the 

 quality of the leaf. But still later, at the present time, here 

 we have the system of picking the leaves off the stalk 

 entirety, and stringing the leaf. Now, the question arises, 

 whether tobacco can be cured too quickly, so as to injure 

 the quality of the leaf. There is another system which has 

 been experimented with some, and that is forced curing, with 

 heat. The question is quite important to farmers, whether 

 this manner of curing the leaf is detrimental to the quality. 



Dr. Jenkins. Well, now, w r ith regard to curing on the 

 stalk by those two methods, I think it is unquestionable that 

 anything which opens the stalk or gives it a chance to dry, 

 or that partially kills the stalk, will hasten the ripening of 



