174 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



low wands, what a corn-growing farmer would call lifeless. 

 There is no vegetable matter or hunms in them, and they 

 suffer more from drought. I suppose 3''ou have two sides on 

 the fertilizer question, — ad\"ocates of both stable manure 

 and fertilizers ; I believe both are right, and I think you 

 have to use both ; but rotation of crops to give some supply 

 of vegetable matter to the soil, I believe, is very important. 

 It makes the soil soft, and better suited to the growth of any 

 crop. If we felt that we could afford to do it, I believe we 

 could get better results with tobacco if we practice some 

 kind of a rotation ; growing grass at least one year in three 

 or four (although tobacco soil is Ycvy poor grass land), or 

 clover, — something of the sort, to give the land a rest and 

 to get another crop on it. I think that would be to the gen- 

 eral advantage. I believe our growers say they cannot afford 

 to practice rotation ; that they have to keep in tol)acco, as 

 all their equipment is suited to that and nothing else, and 

 they get more for tobacco than they can get for any other 

 crop. I saw two or three places in Connecticut this year 

 where the root rot had caused great damage on a part of the 

 held, but on another part which had been in corn for two 

 years before the tobacco wasn't in the slightest degree af- 

 fected l)y it. It is a tradition that you get poor tobacco 

 after corn ; but this man got an excellent crop after it, and 

 had no trouble with the root disease. I believe a certain 

 amount of rotation woukl be of great advantage to us, if we 

 could afford it. At any rate, I think, either by cover crops, 

 or catch crops, or manure, we should get more vegetable 

 matter into our tobacco soils. 



Mr. Thomas Gerry (of Hadley). Will you tell us why 

 we cannot get as good a burn as some other people ? 



Dr. Jenkins. There isn't any better burn than the best 

 burn we get in the Connecticut valley. Our best crops have 

 a perfect burn, but there are crops that have an inferior burn, 

 not a perfect burn, and the manufacturers say it is the way 

 it has been fertilized. That is what the dealers say. I think 

 it is partly that, and partly, perhaps, due to the varying 

 quality of the land, which maj^ not naturally produce a good 

 burn. In Wisconsin, I understand, whose soil has a great 



