Oct, 1, 1899. J THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 229 
USE or THE PLOUGH. 
A oloddy soil will certainly defeat all efforts to get 
a good and uniform stand in the field, and care 
should be taken to plough the ground when it is 
in proper condition. A tobacco-field should be 
ploughed after each hard rain — after the ground has 
sufficiently dried, until the plant is too large. When 
the plants are kept in a perfectly healthy and vig^ 
orous condition, they are less susceptible to disease. 
Pruning, or taking off the bottom leaves in order 
to allow ventilation under the plant, is also a con- 
dition to healthy fields. The amount of water in 
the soil to produce the best results for heavy pipe 
tobaccos is estimated to be from 15 to 20 per cent. 
"Below 15 per cent, the line of drought is reached, 
and the methods of cultivation should have for their 
prime object the maintenance of the water supply 
above the line of drought, so that the growth of 
the plant shall receire no check." — Whitney. 
PKODUCT. 
It is important that growers should take notice of 
these things, tor when they seek an outlet for the 
surplus product they must offer an article quite as 
good as others, and one which is produced as 
cheaply. This cannot be done unless the best me- 
thods are a opted— the best are the most economical. 
The appreciation of the necessity of proper methods, 
and their adoption, will save fully 25 per cent, of 
labour, besides giving better and increased results. 
The various pests of the tobacco plant can be con- 
trolled by the use of Paris green, as a spray, but 
this must not be used after the tobacco has been 
topped. It is very effective in the case of the Miner. 
The lands best suited to growing heavy export or 
pipe tobaccos are friable and well drained. Lime- 
stone soils, with a small percentage of the clay and 
a large percentage of silt, are the best. "Wet or 
forcing soils will not grow good tobacco, as the 
product will be rank and woody. 
(Climate has much to do with the quality, and this 
can only be determined by experiment. For cigar 
tobacco sandy soils are preferred, some of the best 
cigar lands of Florida having 50 per cent, of sand. 
This is confirmed by Mr. Whitney in his report on 
the tobacco soils of the United States, — Queensland 
Agricultural Jotirnal. 
THE VELV^ET BEAN. 
A few words about the velvet been as a source of 
forage as well as a renovator of the soil be very 
opportune, and I would suggest to those who are un- 
aware of the value of this bean to try a small patcy 
of it and just watch the result. Those who have 
already grown the bean will bear me out when I say 
that we have nothing in its own line to equal it. It 
is a great forage producer, and the grain, both in 
the green and dry state, in equal to anything grown 
for food for any stock, and it is not too much to 
say that everything that walks on four feet is foud 
of it. 
The velvet bean grows and makes a fair crop 
where cowpeas would scarcely germinate the seed. 
It is an excellent improver of the soil in that it 
is the best nitrogen gatherer among all the known 
legumes. Its foliage is so dense that it shades the 
land completely during our hot days of su^nmer, 
and by shedding the leaves nearest the ground it 
forms a mulch that conserves the ordinary moisture 
in the soil. In short, wo ht-ve in the velvet bean 
what the Southern farmer h.^ve so long been look- 
ing for, that is, something that will produce a 
good profitable crop and at the same time help to 
put backbone into the poor sandy soils of the bouth. 
1 have said that it will make a fair crop on land too 
poor for cow peas, but it will repay its grower for a 
little commercial fertilizer applied to the soil pre- 
vious to planting time. Some farmers are sanguine 
enough to think that there will come a time when 
commercial fertilizers might be entirely dispensed 
with. There is no indication that will ever come ; in 
fact, the tendency is rather the other way, as every 
year sees a marked increased in the fertilizers used, 
and every broad-minded, observing farmer knows 
that for every dollar thus invested he gets back ten 
and sometimes twenty, accoraing to the intelligence 
and wisdom exercised in the selection of the proper 
kind of fertilizer and the method and time of 
application. 
Like every o her crop, the velvet bean has a prefer- 
ence, if we may use the term, for a certain kind of food 
which is best suit;d to its requirements and which 
eual lei it to return the most profitable crops. It wants 
a feitil zer analyzing high in phosphoric acid and 
potash. Being a natural nia-ogen gatherer, it docs 
not require any nitrogen fed to in the shape of 
fertilizers. If we cannot get a fertilizer containing 
no niirogen, the best way to get over the difficulty is 
to buy our phosphate and muriate of potash, and 
prepare oar own fertilizer, bringing the analysis 
as near as possible to ten per cent potash and seven 
to eight per cent phosphoric acid. Four to six hundre 1 
pounds of this per acre, broadcasted and mixed in 
the soil a short time before planting will pay for 
itself at least twenty-fold. On poor, worn-out soils 
it is best to drill in the fertilizer and plant the 
beau in the drill after it has had a good rain 
on it. 
In preparing the land for this crop the best method 
in my experience has been to run oS furrows about 
five feet apart and drop a been every ten to fifteen 
inches; this will give a good stand, and as the crop 
is a long season one it should be planted as early 
in the season as possible. Some time in late June 
or July make a very thin sowing of Giant beggar 
weed in tho water furrow, this will spring up quickly 
and be ready just in time for the bean to climb 
all over it (for the latter undoubtedly does best when 
it has something on which to climb') If the bean 
has been planted early in April, which is really 
the proper time, a thin sowing of fodder corn in the 
water furrow in June will answer the purpose as well 
as beggar weed. This combination will give an < x- 
ceptioually heavy forage crop, ready to cut in early 
Septemb r, and it will make a good second crop after 
that which can be allowed to remain in the ground 
and be ploughed under in the winter to improve the 
soil and restore its fertility. 
If simply grown as a soil renovator it can be planted 
four feet apart and every two feet in the furrow and 
allowed to remain where it grows. If wanted for 
pasture for stock or hog feed, beggar weed, millet, 
or anything of that kind planted along with it, will 
prove a decided benefit, as in itself it is somewhat 
laxative at first in its effect on stock, and other forage 
mixed with it helps to counteract this effect 
somewhat. 
In cutting to cure for forage is where the real trouble 
is encountered, as its growth is so enormous, and if 
it is growing on anything the tangle of vegetation is 
suoh that it is a hard matter to get at it wt-ll. If 
cut in the forenoon, after the dew has dried off, and 
hauled to the barn without delay and spread over 
poles (I use my tobac o barn for the purpose), it 
cures excellently and makes the finest cattle forage 
I ever saw, and I feel confident that it only needs 
a proper trial by every Southern farmer to secure its 
general adoption all through the Southern 
States. 
I do not think the velvet bean can be grown north 
of Kentucky successfully. A friend in Kentucky grew 
some of it last summer and he reports an extraordi- 
nary growth of vino but nc gain, the season being 
too short for it to form seed. He grew it in a field 
adjoining the turnpike load where a telegraph line 
ran alung. The vines wen' through the fence and 
climbed to the very top of the telegraph poles, show- 
ing that Kentucky soil is well adapted for tho vine- 
at any rate, — C. K. McQuarrie.— Pteji^ecs' Monthly, 
