24 TOBACCO CULTURE. 



PREPARATION FOR THE CROP. 



In New England the common practice is to select for 

 tobacco, land which is intended to remain for years in this 

 crop. This is only possible by very heavy fertilizing. But 

 the New England grower claims that this gives him more 

 perfect control of the crop, whereby he can feed it directly 

 for the qualities worth most in the market. It is, therefore, 

 no difficult matter to find in the Connecticut Valley fields, 

 that have produced tobacco annually for from ten to twenty 

 years, with improvement in quality of product, and no dim- 

 inishment of yield. The Pennsylvaniagrower has his favorite 

 tobacco fields, but practices rotation of crops for which his 

 heavier soils are adapted. In the South and West, rotation 

 of other crops with tobacco is the rule. The Southern grow- 

 er of heavy shipping tobacco, as well as of cigar leaf, how- 

 ever, uses new soil for tobacco, and then takes two or three 

 leaf crops from the soil before changing the crop. The 

 grower of Burley tobacco also prefers new land, but after 

 two crops, he rotates with grain and grass. The Bright Leaf 

 tobacco is generally produced on old land, put out in 

 tobacco every third year. 



The question of when to piow tobacco land next arises; 

 fall or spring are the two seasons for plowing. No rule can 

 be laid down, though the methods of successful growers of 

 each kind of tobacco afford a safe guide. Generally speak- 

 ing, heavy clay soils require fall breaking, so as to be further 

 broken up by the frosts of winter. 



In cigar leaf regions, fall plowing is almost universal, 



