AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
55 
I raked off. and the roots are grubbed up. 
The whole space is then covered with wood 
and brush, two or three feet thick, and 
burned over. This gives an abundant dress¬ 
ing of ashes and fine charcoal, which is to 
be thoroughly worked in to the surface soil, 
clearing off all stones and roots. The 
ground should be laid off into beds about 
four feet wide, and the surface tho¬ 
roughly raked, breaking all the lumps, 
and making the ground as fine as possible. 
The beds should be raised a little on dry 
land, and still more if it. is moist. A pipe- 
bowl full of seed will be sufficietr. for six¬ 
teen square yards of bed. After sowing the 
beds they are usually covered wiih brush as 
a protection against frost. When the plants 
are up, a dressing of fine manure to quicken 
their growth, is of great service. As the 
whole success of the crop depends upon 
these plants, they should have careful atten¬ 
tion, and be kept free of weeds. When the 
danger of frosts is over, the brush is re¬ 
moved, and the plants are followed with 
weeding' and frequent stirring of the soil, 
until they are ready to be put out in the field. 
It will be seen, that the essential things in 
this method are warmth, a seed bed of rich 
fine mold, and protection against frost. All 
these may be secured in the garden under 
glass with little expense or trouble. 
TRANSPLANTING. 
The plants will be ready for this opera¬ 
tion about the last of May or first of June. 
They should be put out during a rain, or just 
after a rain has fallen If the weather does 
not favor, the whole bed should be thoroughly 
showered with a watering pot, so that earth 
will adhere to the roots, when theplants are 
taken up. 
SOIL AND SEASON. 
The best tobacco is raised upon rich, light 
alluvial loamy land, or such as has been 
recently cleared and brought under cultiva¬ 
tion. It requires a warm, mild season, with 
clear bright weather in the latter stages of its 
growth, to give it its highest aroma. It does 
remarkably well in the rich lands in the val¬ 
leys of rivers. Almost the only districts in 
which it is grown in New-England, lie in 
he val'ey of the Connecticut. Though these 
are the best localities for the plant, it will 
do well in almost any well drained land by 
thorough manuring. 
FIELD CULTURE. 
The fields selected for this crop should be 
of the best quality, either newly cleared and 
virgin soil, or old ground, well furnished 
with fertilizers. A clover fallow is a good 
preparation for it. The ground should be 
previously prepared by fall plowing and by, 
cross-plowing and harrowing, in the Spring 
so that it may be of the finest tilth. Lay it 
off into rows three, three and a-half or four 
feet apart, running each way. Every square 
thus made is to be scraped with a hoe, so 
as to form a hill, in which one plant is to be 
set. If the plant is destroyed by worms or 
drouth, it must be replaced immediately by 
another from the seed bed. 
The cultivation to promote growth is much 
like that of the Indian corn. Unless the 
ground has been previously plowed deep, 
it is particularly important that the ground 
should be worked as deeply as possible be¬ 
tween the rows in the early stages of the 
growth of the plant. This will make the 
soil very pliable, so that the roots will readily 
penetrate it, and receive their appropriate 
nourishment. Deep plowing and cultivation 
are also a safeguard against drouths. All 
weeds should be kept under and the more fre¬ 
quent the tillage, other things being equal, the 
better will be the crop. No tpore ground 
should be planted than can be hoed or culti¬ 
vated four or five times in a season. It 
pays as well as upon the corn crop. As the 
plant approaches maturity, care should be 
taken to keep so near the surface, as not to 
injure the roots. These will completely oc¬ 
cupy the soil by the last of July. 
PRIMING, TOrPINU, SUCKER1NG AND WORMING. 
The plant is not grown for its seed, like 
cereals, or for fodder like the grasses, but 
for its eight or ten broad leaves. So we 
have to interfere with its natural growth, 
deprive it of its flower stalk and small leaves, 
and force all the energies of the plant into 
the parts most desirable for market. As the 
plants begin to approach maturity they 
throw out on the top a blossom bud called a 
button. This must be removed with such 
of the leaves, as are too small to be valuable. 
A shoot is also thrown out at the foot of 
every leaf stalk which must be carefully 
pinched off, so as not to injure the large leaf. 
The topping is best done by a measure. 
If six inches of the top is to be removed, 
the topper takes a stick of that length, and 
applies it to every plant. Prune six inches, 
and top to eight leaves is a good rule for 
plants of the average height. If plants are 
unusually large in some rich spots in the 
field, they may be allowed to mature ten or 
twelve leaves instead of eight. If the plants 
are smaller, they should be restricted to a 
smaller number. The crop should be 
wormed, and suckered, at least once a 
week. In some seasons the tobacco-worm 
is very destructive, and constant vigilance is 
necessary. 
CUTTING AND HOUSING. 
Some three months after the plants are 
set out, they begin to assume the spotted 
and yellowish appearance which indicates 
maturity. We now approach a more diffi¬ 
cult part of the management of this crop, 
where the closest attention of the cultivator 
is required. A few day’s neglect, at this 
stage of the business, deprives him of his 
profits. To save a heavy crop, requires 
both energy and activity. The most careful 
hands should be selected for cutters. The 
plants are cut with a knife near the ground, 
and are allowed to lie in tha sun, for a few 
hours, until they fall or wilt. Correct ac¬ 
count of the number of plants cut should be 
kept, so that the barn in which they are to 
be housed may just receive its complement. 
The tobacco after it has fallen, is strung 
upon sticks and carried to the barn in wag¬ 
gons. Here the sticks are arranged so as to 
admit of uniform and gradual drying by ar¬ 
tificial heat. The proper disposition of the 
sticks is a matter to be learned by expe¬ 
rience. 
CURING. 
The day after the plants are housed, the 
barn is heated to about one hundred degrees 
of the thermometer. It is kept at about this 
temperature, for a day and a-half, or two 
days, when the tops of the leaves begin to 
curl. Now the planter must be on the aleri. 
If he is careless, and the fires are made too 
hot, the aromatic oil passes off with the sap, 
and smoke, and he has a house of inferior 
tobacco, that he must sell at a reduced price. 
If his fires are kept too low his tobacco gets 
into a clammy sweat, and the oil escapes. 
There is much more danger of the former 
than of the latter evil. The fires should 
now be kept regular and steady, with a gra¬ 
dual increase of heat, so that in the course 
of forty-eight hours, the mercury will stand 
at 150° to 160°. It may be kept at or about 
that temperature until the tobacco is cured. 
Much of the difficulty in this process might 
be obviated by better constructed barns, and 
a heating apparatus. These might be 
easily arranged so as to avoid all the smoke 
and give the planter a complete command 
of the temperature, so that it should notvary 
five degrees from the most desirable point 
in the whole process of curing. The greatly 
enhanced price of a well cured article would 
soon pay for the extra expenditure, neces¬ 
sary to procure the right kind of barns and 
heating apparatus. The difference in price 
is apparent, when we consider that Connec¬ 
ticut Seed leaf tobacco is quoted at forty 
cents, wholesale price, for perfect, and Ken¬ 
tucky at fourteen to twenty cents. There is 
always a wide range of prices for tobacco 
from the same vicinity, depending upon cur¬ 
ing, much more than upon cultivation. 
STRIPPING, PRICING, &C. 
After the curing process is finianed. which 
usually takes two months, and which is indi¬ 
cated by a dry stem, the leaves are stripped 
from the stalk. Damp weather in the Win¬ 
ter is usually taken for this purpose, to avoid 
breaking the leaves. They should never be 
stripped until the main stem is thoroughly 
dry. Tobacco once hanked too wet cannot 
be dried, and if boxed too wet it will spoil. 
While stripping, the leaves should be as¬ 
sorted into three different parcels ; first, the 
sound, whole, fine, good colored, for perfect 
wrappers ; secondly, the very light yellow, 
and that with the large holes and thick 
leaves, for imperfect wrappers ; and thirdly, 
the balance for fillers. The imperfect will 
bring about one half the price of perfect, and 
the fillers about one-fourth. 
Each hank should contain about as many 
leaves, as may be clasped easily with the 
thumb and finger of a small hand, the butts 
all placed even, and then wound as near the 
end as possible with the binder. 
The hanks should be carefully bundled m 
double rows, butts out, and tips in, and lap 
ping. The bundles should be kept covered, 
until the butts are dry, and then boxed for 
market. 
The high prices for tobacco which prevail 
will induce a large cultivation of this plant. 
It is the better qualities that are most in 
demand for cigar-making. Planters should 
rather seek to improve their methods of cul¬ 
tivation and curing, than to plant more 
acres. 
