24 TOBACCO. 



exacting than hay, potatoes, or rye. It demands chiefly 

 ^^ash and lime, with phosphoric acid and nitrogen. 

 Prof. Johnson recommends for the manuring of one acre, 

 besides ploughing in the stalks of the plants, 500 lb. 

 rock guano or 800 lb. fish guano, 500 lb. kainit (potash 

 salts), and 50 lb. quicklime. But surely it cannot be 

 advisable to mix quicklime with an ammoniacal manure 

 like guano ; it seems to the writer that gypsum, or spent 

 calcium oxide from gasworks, would be a far preferable 

 medium for conveying lime to the soil. 



As observed by Johnson, the " demand made on the soil 

 or on fertilizers by the tobacco crop, is for certain reasons 

 greater than that made by other crops which receive more 

 of nearly every kind of plant food. Hay is more exhaust- 

 ing than tobacco as measured by total export from the 

 soil, but grass grows the whole year throughout, save 

 when the ground is frozen or covered with snow, or for 

 more than 8 months. The period of active growth which 

 is required to mature a hay crop, begins indeed in April, 

 and is finished by July, a period of 3 months, but during 

 the year previous, for at least 5 months, in case of the 

 first crop, the grass plants have been getting a hold upon 

 the soil, filling it with their roots, and storing up food in 

 their root-stocks or bulbs, for the more rapid aftergrowth. 

 Tobacco on the other hand cannot be set out in the field 

 before about the 10th of June, and should be in the shed 

 in about 3 months. Its growth then must be a very 

 rapid one, and the supplies of food in the soil must be 

 very abundant so that the quick-extending roots may be 

 met at every point with their necessary pabulum. A crop 

 of 1260 lb. dry leaves requires about 1100 lb. of dry stalks 



?ROPERT: 



