The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1886-05-19
CULTIVATION.

SAO chtSS ~
soil should be stirred, the subsoil
being left intact.
AS soon as the plant has taken
root, which is shown by its chang
ing color, it should be worked with
the hoe only, by removing the crust
of the hill and drawing loose earth
around the plant. This destroys the
first crop of grass and helps to de-
stroy the cut-worm. But if the land
between the rows has become foul,
it should be plowed with bull-tongue
or shovel at this first working.
When the plants have covered the
hills, say a breadth of twelve inches,
they should be worked thoroughly
with pillow and hoe. This blowing
should be with bull-tongue or shovel,
using short swingletrees, and run
ming it close to the plants, and
throwing out the row with four or
five burrows. If the land has become
very foul, a turning pillow is prefera-
ble:t With the hoe all the surface
soil should be drawn into hills around
the plants as at first. This working
is a lay-by with the pillow, which
should never be used after the plants
have come into top. But later than
this, should the land again become
foul, it should be scraped with the
hoe only. Any vegetation which
springs up after the plant has at
tanned its growth does it no harm,
but is beneficial rather in keeping
the lower leaves from being sanded.
But to the eye of the genuine far
mer it is unsightly and is disadvan-
tageous if a wheat crop is to follow
1t had better be kept down to the
last.
There are three varieties of worms
which prey upon the tobacco plant
the cut-worm, the bud-worm, and
the hOrn-wOrm. OF these the first
selects as the point of its attack the
stalk of the young plant, and is but
the ordinary earth-worm of our gar
dens, and is best gotten rid of by
early working. The second is as com
mon a variety, making its appear
ance about the time the plant is
coming into top, and feeds upon the
bud, cutting into it minute holes
which enlarge with the growing Leaf.
1t is found in greatest numbers upon
new-ground tobacco, showing that
the woods are the habitat of the pa
rent fly. 1t is easily found and taken,
except that in doings so care must
be had not to injure the tender
leaves. The third is the same as
that found upon tomato and Irish
potato tops.
| am unable to scientifically class
ify these three worthless, nor is it
necessary to do so farther than to
say, that by common consent pre-
cedence belongs to the horn-worm,
which is emphatically the uorm, and
is our arch-enemy. For it no effect
ual vermifuge has yet been dis
covered.
This greatest pest of the planter
shows itself as early as May or June,
but not in great numbers, and does
then little or no harm, but should
not be suffered to escape, for if so,
and as soon as it attains it's growth,
it descends into the earth, enters the
chrysalis, and comes out again full
fedged in August. The fly thus gen.
Grated is a large night-fying moth,
which is exceedingly prolific, and
deposits it's eggs in greatest quantity
during the moonlight nights of
August and September.
Against the ravages of the horn
worm there is no remedy short of
determination. A partial prevent
i've is to destroy the fly by distilling
q solution of p~aris-green or of cobalt
into the flowers Of the jamestown
weed. Another device is to place in
the tobacco field, at night, lighted
lanterns set in pans filled with some
viscid matter, such as coal-tar or
molasses. [ have found that to
throw the crop as much as possible
into a single field is some safeguard,
and a better one still is to plant it
early and push it forward as rapidly
as possible, for the reason that in
August when the fly is doing most
mischief, it selects only young and
tender plants, and will even choose
other vegetation rather than ripe or
ripening tobacco upon which the
newly Matched will not thrive and
can hardly exist.
At every stage of the crop a MUIR