SOILS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT. 41 



leaf tobacco ; hence a normal price for many years has been $150 to 

 $200 an acre, though it is now considerably higher than that. It is 

 also a good onion soil, but brings no more profitable returns from 

 that crop than a loam which, under identical cultural treatment, 

 gives a cigar leaf so much thicker and poorer in quality that no one 

 longer persists in trying to grow tobacco on it. Hence a relative 

 price for this soil type is $100 an acre where one location is in every 

 way equal to the other. It should be noted, too, that the best of the 

 tobacco lands contain 1.5 to 2.75 per cent of organic matter. Hence 

 the natural adaptation of that soil does not depend, it need hardly 

 be said, on an unusual organic content; neither may other soils of 

 that locality, though just as favorable for the growth of cigar leaf in 

 every respect save that of texture and structure, be so amended by 

 the addition of humus as to produce leaf satisfactory in quality. 



Dr. Frear, in Bulletin No. 20 (above referred to), quotes Tscher- 

 batscheff, a Russian tobacco specialist, who has studied with care 

 tobacco culture in America, as follows: 



In Virginia and North Carolina the heavy or shipping tobacco is usually grown 

 upon heavy loamy soils which for the most part have a red or dark brownish- 

 red color and contain almost no humus. The tobacco of golden yellow color and 

 pleasant aroma requires no thick layer of humus, so that for its culture * * * 

 a sandy, or sandy loam, soil is selected. 



The experience of growers is that this crop requires heat rather 

 than moisture. In fact, in the presence of an excess of moisture it 

 grows rapidly, the parenchyma thickens, and the leaf is larger, but 

 at the expense of quality. Again, Mayor Ragland, of Virginia, is 

 quoted as follows : 



A deep rich soil overlying a red or dark brown subsoil is best suited for the 

 dark rich export type of tobacco. A gravelly or sandy soil with a red or light 

 brown subsoil is the best adapted to the production of sweet fillers and stem- 

 ming tobaccos. Alluvials and rich flats produce the best cigar stock. White 

 Burley is most successfully grown on a dark rich limestone soil. For yellow 

 wrappers, smokers, and cutters a gray sandy or slaty topsoil, with a yellowish 

 porous subsoil, is preferable. The land must be loamy, dry, and warm, rather 

 than close, clammy, and cold, and the finer and whiter the sand therein the 

 surer the indication of its thorough adaptation to the yellow type. The soils 

 so greatly affect the character and quality of the products that success is 

 attainable only where the right selection of both soil and variety is made for 

 each plant planted, and planters do well to heed this suggestion. Trial will 

 determine what variety is best for any locality, as no one variety is best for all 

 locations. To plant varieties unsuited to the type or on soil unadapted thereto 

 is to invite failure every time. 



In the rapid development of tobacco growing in Florida and 

 near-by States during recent years soil selection has been one of the 

 most important factors; indeed, within that very considerable dis- 

 trict possessing a suitable climate soil selection has been of chiefest 



