112 TOBACCO PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES 



coming next, and perhaps the Yellow Pryor next to them, and the Little or Sweet Orinoco, the Blue Pryor, the 

 Adcoek, the Maun, and the Cunningham, described under "Varieties", chapter II, are extensively cultivated. One 

 general truth is established : that soil adapted to coarse shipping tobacco will not produce line tobacco with any 

 variety, and vice versa. 



All varieties cure dark brown or red when grown on red-clay soils with heavy dark or brown top soil, but incline 

 to brighter and lighter hues on sandy, gray soil, with yellowish subsoil, and cure from bright red to mahogany 

 and fine yellow. On all fresh lauds, except the very best fancy-tobacco soils, all varieties arc somewhat lighter and 

 brighter than on old lands. This is especially the case with those lauds which will only produce shipping leaf after 

 the first or second year. 



Suchis the effect of soils, that the purity of any variety can only be preserved by procuring seed from the 

 soil which produces its original and most perfect type. This is a rule, however, of very little practical value until 

 experiments shall have determined the entire subject of adaptability, and even then the purity of any given variety 

 can only be maintained by great care. The seed-plants must be remote from any other variety to avoid the 

 intermixture of pollen by insects, and the seed is to be selected from the crown, that alone reproducing the same 

 plant. Seeds from the lower and side shoots grow plants resembling those coming from seeds of suckers ; indeed, 

 the side shoots are but suckers. 



TOBACCO SOILS. 



In determining the question as to what constitutes fine tobacco lands, or what element is fatal to the growth of 

 yellow leaf, the inquiry must embrace the important matter of drainage. Tobacco is a plant which delights in a 

 dry, warm soil, requiring comparatively little moisture, and in no respect do these lands differ more widely from 

 others than in thorough drainage. While such lands are very miry in wet weather, so that it is difficult to drive a 

 wa.gon or even to ride over them, the top soil is always dry and warm. 



There is a difference of opinion as to new lands. In the western counties, where the growth of tobacco is 

 quite recent, new land is almost altogether planted, but in the older tobacco counties planters have learned to 

 conserve their old lands and to raise upon them tobacco of the best quality by the judicious use of fertilizers, and 

 no longer depend upon clearing. All agree, however, that a very fine quality of leaf is grown on new lands. 

 Some lands will produce a fair fancy wrapper one or two seasons, and never after. It is also generally agreed that 

 the first crop is very fine and most easily cured, but lacks the body and uniformity of texture and color of the 

 second year's growth on the best tobacco lands. 



Fertilizers are applied upon new as well as upon old lands. In the older tobacco counties cases are given 

 where tobacco has been grown upon land for twenty years in succession without decrease in yield or deterioration 

 in quality, but always with the aid of manure. Such lands appear to possess permanent qualities, which need only 

 the addition of fertilizers and manures, and it is believed that with proper care and rotation most of them can be 

 kept up indefinitely, (a) 



Old fields of the proper soil, which have been worn out and abandoned, make, when cleared of their new growth, 

 the best tobacco lands. They are generally overgrown with pines, with an undergrowth of whortleberry, chincapius, 

 and other bushes, the pines growing to 2 feet in diameter in about twenty-five years. About fifteen or twenty years 

 are required for the resuscitation of old, worn-out lands. One field was planted in corn in 1850, and the yield was 

 so poor that the fence was removed. In 1876 it was cleared of its pine growth and planted in tobacco, which 

 brought 50 cents a pound for the whole crop. This field has been cultivated in tobacco for five successive years, and 

 the last crop was better than the first. The land was treated the first year with 200 pounds of a commercial fertilizer, 

 and has since received yearly applications of stable manure and fertilizer in the drill. A great many farmers are 

 of opinion, however, that the lands are exhaustible and require years of rest, and assert that, although the first 

 crops on old fields reclaimed are better than when first cleared, a great falling off occurs after the second crop, the 

 soil wearing out much more rapidly than in the first instance. 



These old pine fields, when they have a gray, sandy soil and a yellow subsoil, are the best of tobacco lands. A man 

 selected a few acres which had grown up in "bald-faced Spanish oaks", scrub hickory, chincapiu, and sourwood, 

 all indicative of very poor lands, and the crop raised sold for 50 cents a pound at the barn door. When the soil 

 is of the right kind, old fields which have lain for years in "broom-sedge" or broom-grass (Andropogon scoparim) 

 grow the very finest tobacco, while they are almost worthless for other crops. This " sedge" is turned under in the 

 fall before frost, and tobacco is planted the next spring. 



A southern exposure is generally sought for fine tobacco. This soil is drier and warmer, and the plant matures 

 earlier. The rich, black soils of northern slopes will not produce fine tobacco, while a few yards off, on the other 

 slope, the finest may be grown. 



a It is unquestionably true that the mechanical condition of the soil and the absence of certain inorganic elements have more to do 

 with the production of fine tobacco than a supply of plant food. This soil is, indeed, a sponge, which receives and retains just fertilizers 

 enough to bring tUo plant to the proper size, when they become exhausted, and the plant goes into a gradual decline, growing more and 

 more yellow and more and more delicate in tissue, until it is cut. Too much manure will destroy the fine qualities of the leaf, impairing 

 its color and increasing its coarseness. 

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