TOBACCO 13 



Looh Out for the " Flea-Bug." — If the " fly," as it is called, begins to devour the 

 young plants, apply plaster, in which rags saturated with kerosene oil have lain 

 for a few hours, covering the plants with the plaster, if necessary, to keep the 

 little pests from devouring them. Repeat the application after every rain unless 

 the flies have left. 



A covering of green cedar brush has driven off the fly when other remedies 

 failed, and saved the plants. If the flies are numerous, the planter can save his 

 plants only by vigilant and constant attention. Hard burning, early and thick 

 sowing, liberal and frequent applications of manure, are the best safeguards, 

 which rarely fail to reward the planter with an early and full supply of stocky 

 plants, and with some left for his less provident neighbors. Some planters, if 

 such they may be called, always fail — some never. Follow the latter, and you 

 will always be right. 



Canvas-covered beds are the surest protection, and seem the best every way. 



IMPORTANT. 



At tlie risk of repetition, but to make plain further instruction on a branch 

 of the subject about which beginners are less informed and most need advice^ 

 the author adds what follows: 



PRESENT STATUS OP THE VARIOUS LEAF TYPES IN THE MARKETS — FUTURE PROS- 

 PECTS, ETC. 



The dark export type is dull, and excepting the best grades, is selling below 

 the cost of production, and consequently offers no inducement to planters to raise 

 the type, except a few in Southside Virginia, and portions of Kentucky and 

 Tennessee, where soils are peculiarly adapted to this and unsuited for other types. 

 Planters in North Carolina and Piedmont Virginia will do well to let this type 

 severely alone and grow only the manufacturing types — and of these mainly the 

 bright yellow, for which their lands are peculiarly adapted. Portions of the 

 Piedmont section in Virginia and North Carolina can successfully produce a rich 

 mahogany, which is always in demand at remunerative prices. 



The mahogany type is usually grown on soil somewhat too rich for the finest 

 brights, and the fact that the leaves grown upon rich soU possess more substance 

 (cellular tissue, oil, and gum,) is the main reason why they cannot be cured with 

 higher color. Where the soil is well adapted to this type, it is profitable, because 

 it usually commands a high price, and its product is from 25 to 33 per cent, 

 more than bright yellow. 



The sweet sun-cured type is usually produced on soils similar in character* 

 istics to those which produce the mahogany type, and when there is a failure to 

 catch and fix the mahogany color by flues, a nice red color similar to sun-cured 

 is obtained by running slow flres in the flues, and thus making a nice sweet filler 

 almost as good as tobacco cured entirely by sun and air. But the usual mode 

 now practiced by the most successful producers of the sun-cured type, is to place 

 the tobacco on scaffolds, so soon as cut, near the barn, and permit the leaves to 

 cure by sun and air, if the weather permits, and then remove the tobacco into 

 the barn and apply slow fires in the flues to dry out thoroughly stems and stalks. 



A sweet sun and air cured filler is always in demand at paying prices, and a 

 taste once acquired for this type will usually reject all others as inferior. In fine, 



17 



