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XXX. Note on the Sowing and Cultivation of the Sheer az Tobacco. 

 By Dr. Riach, of the Honourable East India Company s Medi- 

 cal Service. 



Read February 7, 1832. 



In December, which is about the middle of winter here the seed 

 is sown in a dark soil, which has been slightly manured ; red clayey 

 soil does not do. To protect the seed, and to keep it warm, the 

 ground is covered with light thorny bushes, which are removed 

 when the plants are three or four inches high ; and, during this 

 period, the plants are watered every four or five days, only however, 

 in the event of sufficient rain to keep the soil well moistened not 

 falling. The ground must be kept wet until the plants are six or 

 eight inches high, when they are transplanted into a well-moistened 

 soil which has been made into trenches for them ; the plants being 

 put on the tops of the ridges, ten or twelve inches apart, while the 

 trenched plots are made so as to retain the water given. The day 

 they are transplanted, water must be given to them, and also every 

 five or six days subsequently, unless rain enough falls to render this 

 unnecessary. 



When the plants have become two and a half to three and a 

 quarter feet high, the leaves will be from eight to fifteen inches 

 long. At this period, or when the flowers are forming, all the 

 flower-buds are pinched, or twisted off. After this operation, 

 ( the watering being continued, and irrigation is the system univer- 

 sally employed throughout) the leaves increase in size and thick- 

 ness until the month of August or September, when each plant is 

 cut off close to the root, and again stuck firmly into the ground. At 



