CULTURE AND CURING IN LOUISIANA. 83 



SOILS AND MODES OF CULTIVATION. 



A very small quantity of freshly-cleared laud is put in tobacco, the old lauds beiug preferred, because the soil 

 is more easily prepared. On new lauds the tobacco has larger stems and fibers; the texture is coarser, and it lias 

 a strong acrid taste. For making sweet tobacco old lauds are best ; for quantity, new lauds. Some blood fertilizers 

 and cotton-seed meal have been tried, but they tended to make the tobacco coarser, while the flavor was impaired. 

 Lime, spread broadcast upon a pea fallow, increases the yield about one-fourth, but impairs the quality. It the 

 soil is put in tobacco for several years iu succession, without fertilizing with pease, no difference is perceptible in 

 the yield for the first two years, but there is a very perceptible diminution in the quantity the third and succeeding 

 years. The quality, however, improves in both sweetness and texture. After the third year the superior quality 

 scarcely compensates for the loss iu quantity. The yield was 25 per cent, greater per acre in 1879 than it was in 

 1809. It is only within the present decade that pease have been introduced and used to increase the fertility of the 

 soil. On old laud, ten -years ago, sixty carottes of 4 pounds each was about the average yield per arpent, but with 

 the constant use of the pea crop as a fertilizer a product of 75 carottes per arpent is now common. When the 

 tobacco is taken oil', in June or July, one bushel of pease is sown to the arpent, and the vines are not turned under 

 as a green crop, but are cut and taken off for hay when the small pods begin to form. It is claimed that the pea 

 vines shade the land during the heated term, and this improves it, leaving it mellow and loose for the succeediug 

 crop of tobacco. 



SEED-BEDS. 



The soil is not burned, but is highly manured with cow-dung, which is put on G inches thick and turned under 

 with a spade or a plow ; after this the bed is well worked with a hoe and a rake until the soil is thoroughly pulverized. 

 The manure is applied to this bed in October and turned under; and during the latter part of December the bed is 

 again worked, and channels are cut through it every 3 feet, so as to secure drainage. The seed, after being mixed 

 with ashes, is sown about the 1st of January or the last days in December, and the bed is beaten with the back of 

 a spade or pressed by a roller. When the plants begin to appear the beds are covered with palmetto leaves, so as to 

 protect them against the frosts of February, and when the leaves are about 2 inches in length they are drawn and 

 transplanted iu the fields, and the seed-bed is plowed and sown with pease, which remain on it until October, when 

 preparation begins for another year. The same spot is used for five or six years in succession, and is only abandoned 

 when the coco-grass or Bermuda grass takes complete possession of it. When the land intended for seed-beds is 

 burned it becomes too light and porous, and the plants die out under the scorching rays of the sun. 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL AND CULTIVATION. 



The tobacco soils in Louisiana are very deep, and, though some what com pact on the river lands, are very friable 

 on the elevated uplands, among the swamps. In the month of January the land for tobacco is plowed to the depth 

 of 6 or 8 inches, care being taken that it is sufficiently dry to work. If plowed too wet, and a hot sun supervenes, 

 the river land, and especially the black, sticky soil, will bake as hard as a sun-burned brick, and no amount of 

 labor will render it pulverulent until the ameliorating influences of the frosts have decomposed the hard lumps. 

 The soil is usually reversed with a turning-plow, and the subsoil-plow is only used after the tobacco has been 

 planted to break out the middles at the last plowing, and thus to secure good drainage. No cultivated plant is more 

 susceptible to the injurious effects of an excess of water in the soil than tobacco. When overflowed; though the 

 water may retire within a few hours, the plant immediately wilts and gradually dies. Another plowing is given 

 the soil about the middle of February by running furrows from 4 to 5 feet apart, and two more furrows with a 

 turning-plow, thrown on each side of the initial furrows, thus forming a series of beds. Toward the end of February, 

 when the soil is in good condition, a horse-rake is run along the tops of the ridges, giving each a wide, level top. 

 After this beds are thrown up on the tops of the original ridges with a one-horse plow, four furrows together. With 

 a hand-rake, the tops of these are raked off, and the land is ready for planting. The plants are then set out 3 feet 

 apart on the beds after a rain, but in seasons of drought it is often necessary to water each plant a day or two after 

 it is transplanted. The planting usually takes place about the last week in February and the first week in March, 

 though the time may be extended to April, or even to May. The usual distance between plants is 3 by 4 feet, 

 making 1L' square feet to each plant, thus giving 3,(>30 plants to the acre, or a little over 3,000 to the arpeut. The 

 distance between the rows, however, varies from 4 to 44 and 5 feet, according to the character of the soil, the wider 

 distance being used on very fertile soils. No effort is made to make the plants align across the beds, as the 

 cultivation is all done one way, and the water furrows are carefully protected, so as to take away any excess of 

 moisture from the immediate vicinity of the plant. The cultivation of the crop is very simple, but frequent, as in 

 the semi-tropical climate of Louisiana grass grows with remarkable rapidity. A subsoil-plow, after the plant is well 

 rooted, is run on each side of the row to the depth of 8 or 10 inches. Apiochwi a combination of the harrow and 

 the cultivator is then used to pulverize the soil between the rows, after which hoes are employed to scrape out any 

 grass that may remain in the narrow belt which is left untouched between the plants. As often as it rains this 



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