TOBACCO PLANTATIONS. 
153 
ground is chosen, from twenty to one hundred 
feet square, whereon they burn prodigious 
piles of wood, in order to destroy the weeds 
and insects. The warm ashes are then dug; 
in with the earth, and the seed, which is 
black, and remarkably small, sown. The 
whole is next covered over with bushes, to 
prevent birds and dies, if possible, from get- 
ling to it; but this, in general, proves very 
ineffectual; for the plant scarcely appears 
above ground, when it is attacked by a large 
black fly of the beetle kind, which destroys 
the leaves. Persons are repeatedly sent to 
pick off these flies; but sometimes, notwith¬ 
standing all their attention, so much mischief 
is done, that very few plants are left alive. 
As I passed through Virginia, I heard uni¬ 
versal complaints of the depredations they had 
committed; the beds were almost wholly de¬ 
stroyed. 
As soon as the young plants are sufficiently 
grown, which is generally in the beginning of 
May, they are transplanted into fields, and 
set out in hillocks, at the distance of three or 
four feet from each other. Here again they 
have other enemies to contend with. ; the 
roots are attacked by worms, and between the 
leaves and stem different flies deposit their 
eggs, to the infallible ruin of the plant, if not 
quickly removed ; it is absolutely necessary. 
