78 BRITISH BORNEO. 
has to go through his nursery and pick them off, otherwise in 
a short time he would have no tobacco to plant out. About 
thirty days after the seed has been sown, the seedlings are old 
enough to be planted out in the field, which has been all the 
time carefully prepared for their reception. The first thing 
to be done is tomake holes in the soil, at distances of two feet 
one way and three feetthe other, the earth inthem beingloosened 
and broken up so that the tender roots should meet with no 
obstacles to their growth. As the holes are ready for them, 
the seedlings are taken from the nursery and planted out, 
being protected from the sun’s rays either by fern, or coarse 
grass, or, in the best managed estates, by a piece of wood, 
like a roofing shingle, inserted in the soil in such a way as to 
provide the required shelter. The watering has to be con- 
tinued till the plants have struck root, whenthe protecting shelter 
is removed and the earth banked up round them, care being 
taken to daily inspect them and remove the worms which 
have followed them from the nursery. The next operation 
is that of ‘‘topping”’ the plants, that is, of stopping their fur- 
ther growth by nipping off the heads. 
According to the richness of the soil and the general ap- 
pearance of the plants, this is ordered to be done by the Euro- 
pean overseer after a certain number of leaves have been pro- 
duced. If the soil is poor, perhaps only fourteen leaves will 
be allowed, while on the richest land the plant can stand 
and properly ripen as many as twenty-four leaves. The 
signs of ripening, which generally takes place in about three 
months from the date of transplantation, are well known to 
the overseers and are first shewn by a yellow tinge becoming 
apparent at the tips of the leaves. 
The cooly thereupon cuts the plants down close to the 
ground and lightly and carefully packs them into long baskets 
so as not to injure the leaves, and carries them to the drying 
sheds. There they are examined by the overseer of his divi- 
sion, who credits him with the value, based on the quantity 
and quality of the crop he brings in, the price ranging from 
Sr up to $8 per thousand trees. The plants are then tied in 
rows on sticks, heads downwards, and hoisted up in tiers to 
dry in the shed. 
