VIGOROUS GROWTH 281 



Department supplies an American expert to visit and 

 advise the growers, but Sir Nugent Everard, who has 

 throughout been the leader of the movement, himself 

 possesses American experience. It is needless here to 

 recount the difficulties that were encountered and the 

 many failures that were experienced, but already the 

 result has been to ascertain what varieties will grow 

 with prospects of success, how they must be cultivated, 

 and particularly how they can be cured and prepared 

 for market in the Irish climate. 



Any doubts one might have as to tobacco-growing 

 in Ireland would be removed at the first sight of the 

 fields on Sir Nugent Everard's demesne in early 

 August, fields of five or ten acres broken up into 

 blocks by narrow belts of tall growing hemp as wind- 

 breaks, and covered with uniform rows of tobacco 

 plants about 3 feet apart and as much high, with their 

 broad shapely leaves touching across the rows. The 

 uniformity and the vigour was what struck one most ; 

 the plants are raised in frames and set out towards the 

 end of May, each plant is confined to a single stem 

 and topped to prevent seed formation, whereupon it 

 grows with the gusto of a field of drumhead cabbages. 

 The most luxuriant of all was a field of Nicotiana 

 rustica, a coarse variety which may serve for the 

 manufacture of nicotine for horticultural purposes, the 

 whole raised from some plants found in a garden in 

 Wexford, where they had hung on from year to 

 year since the end of the Irish industry eighty years 

 ago. 



Already by early August the prolonged harvest was 

 beginning ; the lower leaves as they first begin to 

 change colour and droop are stripped off, and the 

 process may be continued day by day until well into 

 October, but more generally when the upper leaves 



