Drugs and 



18(1 



HOW THE PLANT TS GROWN. 



Like many other plants the Reed is first grown in a nursery and then replanted 

 in beds in a well cleared plot of ground at the rate of 4,000 plants for each acre. These 

 plots are selected in places where water can be easily procured, and of which the 

 soil is what is known as gurupas or a reddish kind of soil. They are carefully 

 fenced round, and from May to April of the following year cattle are daily put into 

 these enclosures to provide manure of the kind which seems to be most essential for 

 the growth of the tobacco plant. In the months of November and December the 

 soil is turned over to render it more fertile, and soon afterwards the daily introduc- 

 tion of cattle into it goes on apace. In March of the following year any form of 

 foreign weed which may have grown since the last turning over of the soil is 

 removed. In April and May again the soil is turned over and rendered fine 

 before the beds are prepared which are to receive the young plants from the nursery 

 As soon as they are put into the beds, each of the plants is carefully covered over 

 with coconut husks or with some branches of trees if the former cannot be obtained. 

 The plants in the absence of rain have to be watered twice every day. A month 

 after planting the soil round each plant has to be rendered loose with a 

 pointed stake. At this time any remaining grass, too, may be removed. After 

 another month the whole ground is turned over, and the beds, which had 

 disappeared in consequence of the turning over are again formed as before. 

 At this stage the plant is full of green tobacco leaves, some of which are 

 removed so as to cause the remaining leaves which are about twelve in 

 number to expand in size. This is done during the latter part of June. In 

 August the stipules are removed weekly from the leaf -stalks. Then when 

 the leaves are properly seasoned they are severed from the plants for the 

 purpose of being cured. 



DISEASES. 



What is most regretable in the cultivation of the tobacco plant, and often 

 renders the toil of the cnltivator entirely useless, is the many diseases to which 

 unfortunately it is heir. Some of them affect single plants, while others seem 

 to be highly contagious, rendering a large number of plants absolutely value- 

 less. It would be a good act on the part of Government if an expert 

 could be sent to examine into these diseases in order to see if some remedy 

 could be found to prevent the occurrence of these maladies. The diseases, so 

 far as I can gather, are five in number. They all seem to afflict the plants 

 within three months of their being planted in beds. Hitaviarima, a disease 

 which comes when the plant is two or three months old, is supposed by the 

 native cultivator to occur less frequently in a newly-cleared plot of ground. 

 Irimadaroge is a disease which afflicts the plant after the tender leaves are 

 cut off. Its symptoms are that it dries up the inside of the plant, and the 

 leaves attain a yellowish colour before they are properly seasoned. The third 

 disease is known as Tanakuduroge. Here the leaves before the lapse of one and a 

 half months are thickly studded with a kind of little white worm. A horrid stench 

 seems to proceed from the leaves thus afflicted, and they are absolutely useless 

 for any purpose whatsoever. This disease is contagious, if the cultivator does 

 not take the earliest precaution to remove the diseased plants. Another com- 

 plaint is a worm disease, these plants being afflicted with a big species of 

 worms a little over an inch in length and one-qnarter in diameter. The mode in 

 which the leaves are destroyed by these worms is rather interesting to note. From 

 one to twenty worms seem to take possession of each plant during the night 

 and to make a royal feast of the leaves. They are unable to bear the heat 

 of the sun, so that before sunrise they descend from the plant and hide them- 



