No. 4.] TOBACCO GROWING. 25 



nitrogen or less lime than what I have named, the crop can 

 make as much growth and as good a quality of leaf. 



In the second place, these quantities of plant food named 

 in the table are not derived wholly from the fertilizers put 

 on to the land just before planting. They came, in part, 

 from the decayed stubble of last year, the fertilizer residues 

 left over and not taken up by the previous crop, and from 

 plant food which has weathered out from the grains of the 

 soil itself. The food of your family includes not only what 

 is in the butchers' and grocers' lulls, but also what has come 

 from the farm itself, of which it is hard to keep an account 

 or even an estimate. So this plant food of the tobacco crop 

 is not wholly what is shown in your fertilizer bills, but has 

 in part come from the farm, i. e., from the substance of the 

 soil itself. And, just as you cannot well determine what 

 part of your own food is taken from off your farm, so it is 

 impossible to tell what part of the plant food of a crop 

 comes from the soil. 



However, bearing all this in mind, we may say that a 

 tobacco crop takes about so much plant food from the 

 soil, just as we say it takes about so much food, or it 

 costs us about so much for food, a year. 



This brings us to inquire what have we learned about fer- 

 tilizers for tobacco? 



First, how much of this plant food must we supply in 

 fertilizers ? What part can we leave to the soil to supply ? 

 This is one of the many questions which we are always 

 asking, but can never answer definitely and certainly. 



Our best tobacco soils are coarse in structure and not nat- 

 urally fertile. They are soils, too, which we should least 

 expect to hold the plant food put on them and keep it from 

 leaching when not bearing crops. 



And, once more, it is usual to let tobacco land lie fallow 

 for nearly nine months of the year, nothing growing on it 

 but suckers and perhaps weeds, and all conditions right for 

 leaching out its soluble plant food, at least the nitrogen and 

 lime. 



For no other crop do we leave the land so long bare of 

 any vegetation which can gather up and hold the plant food 

 which is adrift in the soil and thus prevent its loss. Con- 



