12 TOBACCO CULTURE IN THE WEST INDIES 
for tobacco, if however, it is a red iron pebble it cannot 
be relied upon as a tobacco soil without first trying it. 
The depressions between the ridges may be good tobac- 
eo soil but it is usually of a much heavier character than 
the ridges and produces and inferior grade. Many of these 
slightly heavy soils could be improved without much 
cost by growing continuous crops of leguminous plants for 
a number of years which would fill the soil full of humus. 
The same could be accomplished with stable manure but 
this cannot always be obtained in quantities and it is also 
very expensive. 
The soil in which the best Cuban wrapper is grown is 
a clay loam containing less sand than the filler soil but 
rather more humus. The typical soil of this class is red 
in color containing no quartz rock, but usually some lime- 
stone with which it is often underlayed and therefore well 
drained. It is greatly improved by heavy applications of 
stable manure and as a matter of fact some fields could not 
produce a good tobacco without, because of the too heavy 
character of the soil. 
The best tobacco soils in Porto Rico range from sandy 
loam to clay loam. A number of fields there produce ex- 
cellent wrapper especially under shade but soil types like 
those producing the best filler in Cuba are not common. 
The soils are usually too heavy, containing too much clay 
in proportion to the amount of sand and humus. 
CLIMATE 
The influence of temperature and rainfall on the qual- 
ity of tobacco is not well understood. It has been observ- 
ed that plants grown in the same class of soil but in dif- 
