230 
Tobacco as a Farm Crop for England. 
stress laid on colour. The colour of tobacco is an important 
item, and is valuable as indicative of the quality of the tobacco, 
so far as bright Virginia or Carolina, Turkish or China tobaccos 
are concerned. It is now an accomplished fact, that tobacco of 
a lemon-yellow colour — that which commands the highest price 
in the market except cigar leaf — can be produced in England, 
the bare suggestion of which would have been scoffed at last 
year ; and there seems to be no reason why results equally un- 
looked for may not be established by another year's experiments. 
At present, all the causes that lead to quality in a tobacco-leaf 
are not well known, but I have no hesitation in saying that 
the curing has a great effect on its smoking qualities. 
Q. — But surely climate and soil have more to do with the 
quality of tobacco than curing ? 
A. — Proper soil is, perhaps, the most indispensable factor in 
producing this delicate plant, but the knowledge of the art of 
regulating the three, and of supplying a deficiency where it 
occurs by artificial means, will be most likely to establish the 
growth of tobacco in this country. 
Q. — Let us now consider the question of climate. How do 
you propose to remedy our deficiency in this respect? 
A. — In my own experiment, while the plant was growing, I 
supplied heat and shelter, as far as possible, by erecting close 
rows of hop-poles. The profit of the hops trained up them 
cancelled their expense, and in other parts of the country peas 
and French beans might be used for a similar purpose. 
Mr. W. L. Wigan, who has written a very useful report on the 
cultivation of tobacco, used maize as a shelter. 
Q. — And how did you try to remedy your inferiority of soil ? 
A. — This, of course, is an essential difficulty, and receives 
great attention from all writers on the subject of tobacco in 
Europe, Asia and America. On one point they all seem to 
agree, viz., to the indispensability of potash in the soil, which 
is found in considerable quantities in the land of the best 
tobacco districts ; and analyses of soils and tobaccos grown on 
them under varying conditions of climate, latitude and hemi- 
sphere, demonstrate that the potash in the soils and the tobaccos 
is relatively kept, or approximately so. 
In the report on the cultivation and preparation of tobacco in 
India by Mr. J. E. O'Connor,* the analysis of a soil that pro- 
duces good tobacco in Maryland is quoted, and gives the amount 
of potash as 4"60 per cent., while an analysis of land adjoining 
the land where my tobacco was growing, made in 1882 by the 
late Dr. Voelcker, showed '41 per cent, of potash. Sir John 
* Viilc p. 2.")1 of this artidf. 
