938 rRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



Virginia the best tobacco is grown in a rich loamy, but rather light soil, which has 

 been newly taken into cultivation. In Alsace, where we have seen stronger tobacco of 

 the Virginian kind than in any other part of France or in Germany, the soil is a brown 

 loam, rather light than heavy, such as would grow excellent potatoes and turnips, and 

 which has been for an unknown period under the plough. Wherever potatoes or turnips 

 may be cultivated, there we think tobacco may be grown. 



6133. Climate. As it is beyond a doubt that the best tobacco is produced in countries 

 within the tropics, it is evident that it cannot be worth culture in Britain in situations 

 not naturally mild or warm. Tobacco can never be worth growing in situations much 

 above the level of the sea, nor on wet springy soils or northern exposures. 



6134. Culture. We shall notice in succession the practice in the West Indies, Vir- 

 ginia, and Maryland, in Alsatia, in Holland, in the South of France, and in Ireland, 

 as lately practised by Mr. Brodigan, and suggest what we think the best mode. We 

 shall draw our information chiefly from a valuable article in the Nouveau Cours Complet 

 d' Agricxdture, edition 1823, and from the treatise of T. Brodigan, Esq., 1830; looking into 

 Carver's Treatise on the Tobacco Plant, 1779; Tatham's HistoHcal and Practical Essat/, 

 1800; Jennings's Practical Treatise, 1830; and our own notes of 1813-15, 18, 19, and 

 1828, on Sweden, Germany, and France. 



6135. Culture in the West Indies. In the island of Tortuga, the tobacco seeds are sown in beds twelve 

 feet square, and transplanted into the fields when about the size of young lettuces, in rows three feet apart, 

 and the plants three feet distant in the row. The soil is hoed and kept clear of weeds, and the plant 

 stopped when about a foot and a half high. The buds which push from the axillee of the leaves are taken 

 out with the finger and thumb, in order to throw the whole force of the plant into the leaves. When the 

 edges and points of the leaves begin to get a little yellow, the stalks are cut over by the surface when the 

 leaves are wholly freed from dew ; they are then carried into a close house, so close as to shut out all air, 

 and hung upon lines tied across for the purpose of drying. When the stalks begin to turn brownish, they 

 are taken off the lines and put into a large bin or chest, and heavy weights laid on them for twelve days. 

 They are then taken out, and the leaves stripped from the stalks, again put into the bin, and again well 

 pressed, and complelely excluded from air for a month. They are now taken out and tied into bundles, 

 of about sixty leaves in each, which bundles are kept completely excluded from the air in a box or chest 

 till wanted for disposal to the manufacturer. {Dr. Barham, a contemporary of Sir Hans Sloan, in 

 Jamaica, as quoted by Brodigan, p. 121.) The species to which the above account refers, is, in all proba- 

 bility, the N. repanda. 



6136. Culture in Virginia and Maryland. New soil of a medium quality is preferred : the seeds are 

 mixed with six times their bulk of wood-ashes or sand, sown on beds of finely prepared earth, as early in 

 spring as possible, and covered with straw, branches, or boards at nights when any danger is apprehended 

 from frosts ; they are of course kept clear of weeds. The field intended for the plants is in the mean time 

 well laboured with the plough ; it is laid into ridglets three feet wide, and along the centre of each a 

 row of plants is placed by means of a line marked with knots, at three feet apart ; the plants of the one 

 row alternating with the intervals of the other ; so that when the field is completed, the whole stand in 

 quincunx. The plants are taken from the seed-bed to the field when they have five or six leaves exclu- 

 sive of the seed leaf; but they maybe transplanted with fewer or more leaves in moist or cloudy weather. 

 They are taken up carefully, raising the earth under them with a spade, and carrying them to the field in 

 a basket, and they are planted with dibbers an inch in diameter and fifteen inches long. They are 

 inserted as deep as the seed leaf, but no deeper. In a month afterwards they will have grown a loot in 

 height, and will require to be hoed and weeded. When they have attained the height of two feet, the 

 summit of each plant is pinched out, and the lower small leaves, and any others dirtied or injured by 

 insects, picked off! From eight to twelve good leaves may now remain on each plant. The remaining 

 part of the culture consists chiefly in removing weeds or insects, and in pinching out the buds which 

 appear in the joints or axillae of the leaves. From the time that the tops of the plants are pinched off, till 

 that when the crop is fit to be gathered, is generally about five or six weeks. During this time the plants 

 are looked over two or three times every week, for the purpose of pinching off the lateral buds, so as to 

 confine the entire effort of vegetation to the nourishing of the eight or twelve leaves. When the leaves 

 begin to change colour, droop at the extremities, begin to smell rather more strongly, to become furrowed, 

 rougher to the touch, and easily broken when bent, the plants are cut over by the surface when the dew 

 is completely removed from them. Some cut them an inch under the surface, and others an inch above 

 it. Each plant is left on the spot where it is cut for one day, and turned in the course of that day three or 

 four times, to expose every part equally to get dried by the heat of the sun. Sometimes the plants are 

 gathered into heaps, and remain on the field during the night in order to be spread out again the next day ; 

 but more generally they are collected together before the dew begins to fall, and put into a bin covered with 

 boards on which stones are laid, and left in that situation, excluded from the air, for three or four days to 

 ferment. Afterwards they are taken out, two and two tied together at the root end of the stem, or the same 

 effect produced by running a peg through them, then hung across lines or cross-beams, and thus dried in open 

 sheds. After the plants have been completely dried, they are taken down from the cords, poles, or beams, 

 to which they have been attached, in a moist day ; because if they were to be handled in a very dry day, the 

 leaves would fall to pieces, or crumble into powder. They are now spread on hurdles in heaps, and covered 

 with mats for a week or two to sweat : during this time the heap is frequently examined and turned, in 

 order that every part may be equally heated and fermented, and no part burnt. This is said to be the 

 most difficult part of the preparation, as it unquestionably is of the art of making hay ; experience alone 

 can teach its attainment. The fermentation being completed, the leaves are separated from the stems, 

 the latter thrown away, and the former separated into three classes, bottom leaves, top leaves, and middle 

 leaves. These leaves are now dried under cover, and tied together in bundles often or twelve, which are 

 called manoques or hands ; these are packed in regular layers into casks or boxes, and compressed so as to 

 exclude all air by means of a round board of the same diameter as the interior of the cask, and which is 

 every now and then put in and pressed down by means of a lever, which communicates a pressure of be- 

 tween 3000 and 4000 pounds. This manner of close packing is essential for the preservation of the tobacco. 

 The operation is always performed when the air is humid, because, as before observed, dried tobacco is 

 extremely brittle. Good tobacco thus prepared no longer ferments, except very slightly in the succeedmg 

 spring or summer, and which is found to be an advantage. The finest tobacco is grown in the west of 

 Virginia and Maryland, near the Alleghany Mountains, where the temperature, during its growing season, is 

 between 60O and 70. {N. Cours Complet d'Agr.Sfc.) The species in this case is unquestionably N. Tabhcu7n. 



6137. Culture of the tobacco in Holland. The species is chiefly N. Tabacu7n, but sometimes N. rustica. 

 The culture is carried to a considerable extent, especially in the provinces of Guelders and Utrecht. The 

 seed is sown in hotbeds, ten feet broad, and of any convenient length ; the depth of the dung of the bed is 

 two feet, and the frame which is placed on it is sometimes covered with sashes, but more commonly with 

 mats only during nights. The plants arc transplanted into fields which receive a sort of garden culture. 



