THE PLANT BED 465 



The selection of seed plants for the production of seed for plant- 

 ing is a very important operation. It is simple and can be done by 

 any intelligent farmer who is willing to take a little pains. 



An excess of plants should be selected during the season and 

 marked by tying a rag or a tag on them. They should come up to 

 the ideal for stalk, leaf, and texture so far as this can be told in 

 the growing season. A dozen plants may be enough on the small 

 farm. About the time the flowers begin to open a twelve-pound 

 paper bag should be tied over the flower head of the Lest plants ; some 

 of the inferior ones can be rejected. If any flowers have opened 

 they should be cut off, because they have probably been cross- 

 pollinated with an inferior plant. Every few days the bag should 

 be raised to accommodate the lengthening stalk and the dead flowers 

 should be removed to prevent mold. Insects that injure seed 

 should be watched for. When the plants are mature they should be 

 cut and housed, allowing the bags to remain on them. The leaves 

 must be kept separate and compared so that the best seed plants can 

 be selected. This method, kept up every year by a careful man, will 

 result in a great improvement of the variety of tobacco. 



The Plant Bed. Tobacco plants are started in beds under 

 favorable conditions from six to twelve weeks or even longer before 

 time to set in the field. A sunny exposure is chosen and the soil 

 should be well drained and warm. In some sections only new land 

 is used for plant beds and no extra fertilization is given. In other 

 sections very fertile blue-grass sod is plowed in the early fall to 

 decay and make a seed bed the following spring. When old land has 

 to be used manures and fertilizers are generally employed. Stable 

 manure (it should be well rotted) is used at the rate of ten to twenty 

 tons per acre, and rich commercial fertilizers are used at the rate 

 of one to two tons per acre. The fertilizer is usually very rich in 

 nitrogen. The Pennsylvania Station got best results in a test with 

 forty-eight pounds of manure, four pounds cottonseed meal, one 

 pound of acid phosphate, and one-half pound of sulfate of potash to 

 108 square feet of bed. 



To kill weed seed and disease germs the plant bed is usually 

 burned. This may be done by heaping wood on it and firing it, by 



