168 
THE CULTURE OF TOBACCO.—NO.. I. 
THE CULTURE OF TOBACCO.—NO. I. 
In the uplands of Virginia, the common method 
adopted in cultivating tobacco, is to clear new land 
every year, or every two or three years; in this 
way tracts not remarkable for fertility are made to 
produce that staple. In low lands and where the 
soil is rich, a tobacco-crop may be obtained every 
two or three years for a length of time, but in 
poor new lands, or such as are of mean quality, 
there are only a few crops, sometimes not more 
than two or three raised before the land becomes 
unfit for its culture without manures. 
The object of this paper is to show what are the 
causes of sterility as respects tobacco, and by what 
means land may be improved, and kept in good 
condition for that important crop. 
The first point which challenges attention, is the 
fact that new land, however poor the basis may be, 
unless rocky, will produce fine plants; and tracts 
that have run to waste, and been covered with 
old field-pine, after a time, when cleared again, 
yield an excellent crop. As far as the eye can dis¬ 
cover any difference between new lands and those 
that have suffered under the exhausting tillage of 
new countries, there appears to be a difference 
only in the quantity of decaying leaves which 
abound near the surface. In tobacco-tillage these 
are carefully covered by the hoe before spring, 
and thus whatever benefit arises from their pres¬ 
ence is secured to the plants. Many persons regard 
these leaves as nothing more than so much humus, 
but upon examination they are found remarkably 
rich in saline matters. It would be unnecessary to 
eay anything of their origin, were it not that much 
confusion, the result of the want of a scientific 
ground-work, exists among practical men on this 
subject. 
The vegetable kingdom, as respects the food of 
its highly organized individuals may be said to 
consist of two dissimilar classes. Some plants are 
the natives of the mere mineral earth, they flour¬ 
ish on lands which are without vegetable, or or¬ 
ganic matter of any kind, provided all the mineral 
substances they require for their structure is pres¬ 
ent in the soil. Such plants draw all their gaseous 
food from the air, and are necessarily the earliest 
inhabitants of the earth. Numerous forest trees, 
natural grasses, clovers, spurry, &c., are of this ex¬ 
tensive family. Many individuals are unable to 
grow except on what the farmer terms poor land, 
or such as is destitute of humus. The result of 
the continued growth of such plants upon bare 
elay, or sand, is to accumulate vegetable matter. 
This is effected by two processes ; by the death of 
the roots, and by the fall of leaves, or both these ac¬ 
tions occur together. In the forest, roots are pro¬ 
duced in sufficient abundance; but the annual 
layer of leaves which fall are of much more im¬ 
portance than roots, because the latter soon pen¬ 
etrate beyond the slender radicles of most annual 
plants, and contain but a small fraction of the sa¬ 
line matters leaves possess. On the other hand, 
grasses when cut or grazed add to the soil by the 
remains of the roots of previous crops. These, 
although decaying with readiness, are less rich 
than the falling leaves of trees. If the grass or 
clover be uncut, then the accumulation becomes 
exceedingly rapid. 
Another tribe of plants is found only upon lands 
rich in vegetable matter, such are the Jamestown- 
weed {Datura,) various worm-seed plants {Chen- 
podium). These are entirely without cultivation, 
but they require a portion of their food besides 
mineral matters from the earth. They are rich in 
nitre and ammonia. Every planter knows that the 
weeds which appear upon new lands are different 
from those of worn-out lands, and for no reason but 
that they consist of such plants as require the 
presence of decaying vegetable matter in the soil. 
As soon as that disappears, they die away, and are 
replaced by plants of the foregoing class. This 
point is here insisted on, because, agricultural 
chemists have overlooked the specific differences 
which exist in plants as respects food. It has 
never entered the imagination of zoologists to con¬ 
ceive that all animals browsed on the same herb. 
The distinction may not be as great in plants as 
in animals, but it is worthy of attention. 
Besides these natural classes, the planter is in¬ 
terested in another race of vegetables—those that 
are the produce of cultivation, such as wheat, cab¬ 
bages, potatoes, &c. If the difference be exam¬ 
ined between the wild cabbage and potato, and the 
garden specimens, as respects soil, it will be found 
to consist principally in the large quantity of mould 
necessary to their cultivation. These points, sim¬ 
ple as they may appear to the practical man, must 
be clearly apprehended as the basis of many impor¬ 
tant principles in agriculture, and with the view 
of applying them in the case of the tobacco-plant, 
they are here introduced. 
But, before I proceed farther, it is necessary to 
remark, that the facts narrated have no connexion 
with the humus doctrine. Liebig’s writings have 
introduced to the agricultural world the speculation 
of a few unknown persons, that humus, as such, is 
the food of plants, and that the farmer has only to 
make it soluble to command any increase of crop. 
This hypothesis was really of little note until he 
built it up to combat. The use of vegetable mat¬ 
ter in the soil is manifold and important; but so 
far as it constitutes a portion of the food of plants, 
it acts only by supplying carbonic acid,'ammonia, 
and nitric acid, in certain forms to the roots. 
Of the different classes of plants above enumer¬ 
ated, tobacco belongs to the tribe that grow only 
on soils rich in vegetable matter; it is, moreover, 
in the United States, a cultivated plant in so far as 
the leaves are much developed by the practice of 
topping or removing the flower-stalk. All plants 
of this kind that do not very closely cover the soil, 
exhaust it of vegetable matter; or, to write more 
correctly, during their cultivation the ground loses 
its humus, and after a few seasons it entirely dis¬ 
appears. As soon as this result occurs, tobacco 
can not any longer be raised without manures. 
Tobacco, therefore, requires more nitrogen in a 
form fit for assimilation for its cultivation than it 
can derive from the air; grasses and clover obtain 
as much as they require. It is well known to 
planters that tobacco contains nitre; by burning, 
carbonate of ammonia is also given off from it. 
Both these bodies are obtained from food rich in 
