TOBACCO 

 SAMPLE B. 



239 



* Equivalent to 1,200 Ib. of nitrogen per acre. 



The yield per acre and quality of the crop depend very 

 largely on the nitrogen content of the soil, and the 

 heaviest crops are generally reaped off virgin land, but 

 the tobacco plant is such a voracious feeder that four 

 years' continuous tobacco cultivation practically reduces 

 all Nyasaland soils, except the heaviest clays, to such a 

 state of poverty as to render them useless for tobacco 

 growing until they have been green manured for a year, 

 or allowed to revert to natural grass and weed for not 

 less than two years. 



The percentage of bright leaf in a crop is usually in 

 adverse proportion to its luxuriance, and the brightest 

 tobacco is produced on the lightest soil or loams 

 deficient in nitrogen; but this class of bright, small 

 yellow leaf, without body and specially suitable for 

 cigarettes, is never profitable to the planter, the yield 

 per acre seldom exceeding 300 Ib. 



A golden leaf with body and a light ripe mahogany leaf 

 might be called the planter's ideals, and are unquestion- 

 ably the two most profitable classes of leaf to grow; a 

 crop with a high proportion of these grades is generally 

 the product of a medium soil, and although the crop may 

 only weigh 450 to 550 Ib. per acre, it is always more 

 profitable than a heavier crop of 600 Ib. to 700 Ib. of 

 coarse rank tobacco, which, on curing, produces a high 

 percentage of dark mahogany and 1-ow-class green leaf. 



As the percentage of dark leaf rapidly increases with 



