TOBACCO. 23 



from year to year has brought only partial relief. Some years they come in great 

 numbers, and, despite the best efforts of the planter, seriously damage his crop. 

 Perhaps the next year they are few, and give him no trouble. It is the nature of 

 this insect to raise at least two broods during the year. The hawk-moth or 

 tobacco-fly usually makes his appearance in Virginia in the month of May. The 

 eggs deposited by the first moths hatch out in from five to seven days larvse or 

 worms. The worm sheds its outer skin twice before it gets its growth. The grow- 

 ing stage of the worm lasts from twenty-five to thirty days, and after it has 

 attained its growth it gorges itself a few days longer, and then crawls or burrows 

 into the ground, where it soon passes into the pupa state; and after some twenty- 

 three or twenty-five days from the .time of its crawling into the ground the pupa 

 sends forth a moth to lay more eggs and hatch out more worms. Each moth is 

 capable of laying on an average two hundred eggs. So that for every moth in 

 May we may reasonably expect at least one hundred worms of the first brood; and 

 if none of these are destroyed, but all allowed to change to moths, and these latter to 

 raise a horde of worms, what wonder that the second brood sometimes appears in 

 such countless numbers as to defy all efforts to destroy them before they have 

 ruined the crop. Every moth ought to be destroyed as they appear, and this may 

 be done to great extent by injecting a few drops of sweetened Cobalt (which is a 

 poison) into the flowers of the Petunia, Honeysuckle, or Jamestown (Jimpson) 

 weed, which will give them their final quietus. But this hunt for the moth is not 

 general, and if it were some would escape. But if every planter would wage a 

 war of extermination on the first brood of worms — unfortunately a thing rarely 

 done — ^they would never appear in such unconquerable hordes later in the season. 

 The suckers should be pulled off every week as they appear, and ought never to 

 be permitted to get over two inches long; for, if permitted to grow large they 

 abstract much that would otherwise go to perfect a rich, silky leaf. No planter 

 need expect a crop of fine grade who does not pull off the suckers while small, 

 and prevent the horn-worms from riddling the leaves. 



RIPENING. 



The leaf type, as contra-distinguished from cigar tobacco, is known to be 

 ripe when its color changes from green to a -greenish yellow, thickens, so that 

 when the leaf is folded over — the under surface being outward — and pressed 

 between the thumb and finger it cracks open. The upper surface of the leaf is 

 roughened, for reasons stated under Science of Curing Yellow Tobacco, and gene- 

 rally of a mottled yellow and green color. Ripening of this type usually takes 

 place in Virginia and North Carolina in about five to six weeks after the plants 

 have been topped, sometimes longer when growth has been retarded by drought. 

 The cigar type ripens about two weeks sooner after topping. 



[Note. — Mr. S. P. Carr, of the tobacco commission firm of Carr & Dickin- 

 sons, Richmond, Virginia, and by the way one of the best-posted tobacco men 

 engaged in the tobacco industry, writing to the "Western Tobacco Journal," gives 

 the following advice and information in regard to the best stage in which to har- 

 vest tobacco :] 



Just as granulation reaches its maximum,. if the weather continues open and 

 cool, as is most likely at cutting time, the stalk ceases to pump nourishing plant 



