TOBACCO AM) ITS CULTURE. 145 



settinsr tobacco, and the nearer one can hit that time the 

 more fortunate is he. Between the 5th and 15th of June 

 is generally the best time. Late-set tobacco has one advan- 

 tage over early-set, which in some seasons is of great value. 

 The plants do not have so long time to contend with the cut- 

 worm, which usually disappears the first part of July. 



To have the land in the best possible condition to receive 

 the growing plant is of the utmost importance. It is of no 

 use to think of setting the minute rootlets of the tobacco 

 plant with the expectation that it will thrive in soil which is 

 made up mostly of hard nubs of dirt, the size of one's fist, 

 or where one-half of the land which you have prepared is 

 composed of corn-stalks and turf. 



A very successful tobacco grower, noAv past eighty years 

 old, who lives less than a thousand miles from Mount Sugar- 

 loaf, says that people often ask how he and his son succeed 

 in getting so large an amount of tobacco to the acre. " It 

 is no secret," says he; "we fertilize well and then fit our 

 land well ; we plough and harrow, and plough and harrow 

 again, till the manure is thoroughly mixed with the soil, and 

 the soil is in a very fine tilth." That was his method of get- 

 ting from twenty-four to twenty-six hundred pounds of 

 " Havana " tobacco to the acre. The rest of us might do the 

 same if we would follow his plan. 



AVithout egotism, the writer would like to give his way of 

 raising a good crop of tobacco. 



In the first place, I would prefer l3.nd upon which tobacco 

 has been grown the two years previous ; and here lei me 

 say, that I would not grow tobacco more than three or four 

 years in succession on the same piece, for the reason that I 

 wish to grow this crop in rotation over the whole farm and 

 prepare the land for bountiful crops of grain or grass to fol- 

 low, which matter I shall allude to again hereafter. 



Having chosen my land, I would cart and spread, and 

 plough in as early in the spring as the land would be in a 

 condition to go onto without injury to the land, from twenty 

 to twenty-five cart-loads of stable manure — the excrements 

 of domestic animals fed with English hay, wheat bran, corn 

 and cotton-seed meal prepared. Once or twice in the interval 

 previous to the second ploughing, I would thoroughly harrow 



