74 VIRGINIA PLANT-BED. 
provender and provision, together with an axe, and such 
other tools as may be needed upon the road, in case of 
accident. In this manner they set out to the inspection in 
companies, very often joining society with the wagons, and 
always pursuing the same method of encamping.” 
The methods of making the plant bed, cultivating and 
harvesting, by the early planters may be interesting to all 
growers of the plant and are here described as showing the 
progress made in cutting tobacco from that time until now. 
“In spring red seed, in preference to the white, is put into 
a clean pot; milk or stale beer is poured upon it, and it is 
left for two or three days in this state; it is then mixed with 
a quantity of fine fat earth, and set aside in a hot chamber, 
till the seeds begin to put out shoots. They are then sown 
in a hot-bed. When the young plants have grown to a 
finger’s length, they are taken up between the fifteenth and 
twenty-second of May, and planted in ground that has been 
reviously well manured with the dung of doves or swine. 
hey are placed at square distances of one and a half-foot 
from one another. In dry weather, they are now to be 
watered with lukewarm water softly showered upon them, 
between sunset and twilight. When these plants are full 
two feet high, the top of the stems are broken off, to make 
the leaves grow thicker and broader. Here and there are 
left a few plants without having their tops broken off, in 
order that they may afford seeds for another year. Through- 
out the summer the other plants are from time to time, 
pruned at the top, and the whole field is carefully weeded to 
make the growth of the leaf so much the more vigorous. 
“Tn the month of September, from the sixteenth day, and 
between the hours of ten in the morning and four in the 
afternoon, the best leaves are to be taken off. It is more 
advantageous to pluck the leaves when they are dry than 
when they are moist. When plucked they are to be immedi- 
ately brought home, and hung upon cords within the house 
to dry, in as full exposure as is possible to the influence of 
the sun and air; but so as to receive no rain. In this expo- 
sure they remain till the months of March and April follow- 
ing; when they are to be put up in bundles, and conveyed 
to the store-house, in which they may be kept, that they 
may be there till more perfectly dried by a moderate heat. 
Within eight days they must be removed to a different 
place, where they are to be sparingly sprinkled with salt 
water, and left till the leaves shall be no longer warm to the 
