﻿THE CULTURE OF FLUE-CURED TOBACCO. 19 



yards. Long poles or skids are laid along- the ground at intervals of 

 about 4 feet. Across the ends of these skids on the upper side of the 

 bed, brush and wood is piled about 4 feet wide and 3 feet high. This 

 pile is set on fire in several places. With considerable attention it 

 will generally burn down sufficiently in about a half hour. The 

 embers are then pulled down with hoes or hooks with long handles 

 to the adjacent strip 4 or 5 feet wide just below. The fires are 

 renewed by piling on more wood and brush and allowed to burn 

 down for another half hour, or until the soil beneath seems well 

 heated and dried out to a depth of about 3 inches. This process is 

 repeated until the whole bed is gone over. 



A spell of dry weather when the ground is free from frost should 

 be chosen for burning. If the soil is wet, it will take much more heat 

 to burn with the same efficiency because of the increased amount of 

 water to be evaporated, and in some cases the physical condition of 

 the soil might be injured by burning when the soil is too wet. The 

 bed may be burned at any suitable time during January or February, 

 or even as late as the middle of March in the western part of the 

 Old Belt section. The burning of the soil puts it into good tilth, and 

 generally it can be worked up and sowed to best advantage at that 

 time. A disadvantage is the danger of washing the seeds away by 

 heavy rains or that they may sprout prematurely during protracted 

 warm spells in the winter months and be killed by later cold snaps. 

 This latter incident, however, is a rare exception, and generally the 

 seed will not come up till about the last of February or first of March 

 in the New Belt section or about the middle of March in the western 

 part of the Old Belt. In fitting the bed after burning, or if fitted 

 without burning, as is sometimes done on weed-free land, a single- 

 shovel colter plow is of great service. After raking off the embers 

 the bed should be gone over both ways with the single-shovel plow 

 and then gone over several times with a drag harrow. This will 

 minimize the amount of handwork required in fitting to a fine surface 

 tilth. Fertilize liberally by raking in about 1 pound per square yard 

 of some good fertilizer such as 3-8-3 or its equivalent. If the bed 

 has been burned, the ashes will give enough potash, but phosphoric 

 acid and ammonia will be required. Blood or cottonseed meal are 

 good forms in which to apply ammonia at the time of seeding, but 

 about the time the plants should come up a top-dressing of nitrate 

 of soda, at the rate of about 5 pounds per 100 square yards, will start 

 the plants to growing vigorously. Unless absolutely necessary, nitrate 

 of soda should not be applied to a plant bed after the plants have 

 attained much size, because it will force them into a late tender 

 growth at transplanting time and they will not be sure to live. 



A moderately heaping tablespoonful of good seed is enough to 

 sow 100 square yards of bed. If too much is used the plants will be 



