'ntcotiana tabacum and n. rustica. 



71 



May, which is, however, always of very inferior quality. No particular rotation is used. 

 The land is always heavily manured, so that the tobacco is occasionally grown after a 

 crop of maize, and the field does not receive a fallow even in the kharif preceding. 

 And in cases where strong manure is available, such as in the environs of large cities, 

 tobacco commonly forms one of three crops which are regularly taken ofi* the land each 

 year, potatoes in the months November to February following after maize, and being 

 succeeded by a crop of asarhi tobacco. 



Soils and manuring. T^e manure which is given to the land is so heavy as to make the natural char- 



acter of the soil a secondary consideration. A loam is undoubtedly the most suitable 

 soil, but if there is the inducement of a khari well, shift will be made with any kind of 

 land, and since khari wells chiefly occur near old village sites, tobacco fields are often 

 met with, the natural soil of which would, if uncorrected by manure, be little else than a 

 collection of brick bats. Fields growing tobacco receive at least 200 maunds of the 

 richest manure available to the acre, but since the land generally bears two crops within 

 the year, the tobacco does not appropriate the whole benefit to itself. In some districts 

 (Fatehpur, Allahabad and Jaunpurj it is the practice to manure tobacco land by herding 

 cattle on it at night, and in the Bijnor District almost the whole of the tobacco is grown 

 on clearings along the forest border which are used to herd cattle in during the rains. 

 The cultivators usually live in villages at some distance, but in the cold and hot weather 

 months migrate to the jungles and establish their tobacco fields, returning as soon as 

 they have cut their crop. A peculiarity of the tobacco plant is its desire for organic 

 salts, and it is to the presence of potash salts, becoming white potassic carbonate in the 

 ash, that the mellowness of flavour in good tobacco is principally due. Hence wood ashes, 

 containing potassic carbonate form one of the best manures for tobacco. But in India 

 these salts are almost always supplied in the form of nitrates, which, while encouraging 

 a strong growth, lend a pungency to the flavour which is very distasteful to Europeans, 

 but highly appreciated by the Natives of the country. It is for this reason that khari 

 well water is so eagerly used for tobacco, containing as it does nitrate of soda in solution, 

 and, when it cannot be obtained, nona mitti, or earth impregnated with nitrate or po- 

 tash (saltpetre), is commonly used as manure, being obtained by scraping the efflorescence 

 from off" old walls or the sites of former manure heaps. The walls of a village are 

 always made of mud dug from the village tank, and are therefore strongly impregnated 

 with the derivatives of urine. 



Tillage. The soil must be very finely pulverized, and often owes its preparation more to the 



mattock than to the plough. If the plough is used it is driven through the land at 

 least eight times, the log clod crusher being dragged over the ground between every two 

 or three ploughings, so as to reduce the soil to a condition as nearly resembling powder 

 as possible. 



Sowing. The seed is sown in nurseries, and planted out when about six inches high. To- 



bacco seed is exceedingly small, and in order to sow it evenly it is generally mixed with 

 wood ashes. A handful of seed sown in a bed measuring 150 square yards will be suf- 

 ficient to raise plants for an acre. The soil must be thoroughly moist, and the seed is 

 covered by brushing the earth over it by hand or by a twig brush. The soil round 

 the seedlings must be kept always moist, and this when the seed has been sown after 



