SELECTION OF SOIL. 425, 
placed, to exclude the moles. They fill this enclosure to the 
height of eighteen inches with fresh, coarse manure, which 
they press closely by beating as they throw it on; coverin 
with finely pulverized earth mixed with dung of the preceding 
year that had become soil. They do not regulate their time 
of sowing either by the moon, month, the season, but b 
the holy week of the passing year ; it is on Good Friday that 
all of their beds are sown, and although this day may vary 
nearly one month in different years, they are faithful to 
their thermometer—their piety not permitting them to know 
any other. To the mysterious influence of the day, without 
regard to the season, they ascribe their success and they 
generally succeed.” Bickinson gives an account of the man- 
ner of making the plant bed in the East Indian Archipelago. 
He says: “Not far from us is a hut inhabited by two 
natives, who are engaged in cultivating tobacco. Their 
ladangs, or gardens, are merely places of an acre or less, 
where the thick forest has been partially destroyed by fire, 
and the seed is sown in the regular spaces between the 
stumps.” ‘ 
After making the plant bed and tending through the weed- 
ing season, the next step to be taken is the 
CHOICE OF GROUND 
for the tobacco fields. Tobacco, unlike any other. plant, 
readily adapts itself to soil and climate. The effect produced 
upon the plant may be seen in comparing the tobacco of 
Holland and France, the one raised upon low, damp ground, 
the other on a sandy loam. The early growers of the plant 
in Virginia, were very particular in the selection of soil for 
the plant. The lands which they found best adapted were 
the light red, or chocolate-colored mountain lands, the light 
black mountain soil in the coves of the mountains, and the 
richest low grounds. 
Tatham says: “The condition of soil of which the plant- 
ers make choice, is that in which nature presents it when it 
is first disrobed of the woods with which it is naturally clothed 
throughout every part of the country; hence in the parts 
where this culture prevails, this is termed new ground, which 
may be there considered as synonymous with tobacco ground. 
Thus the planter is continually cutting down new ground, 
