The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1895-03-28
TOBACCO CULTURE.
HELPFUL HINTS TO NEW BE-
GINNERS AND OTHERS

GlNNERS AND OTHERS
In the Cultivation of Bright Tobacco
Experience of a Practical Farmer
Given for the Benefit of Others
The Kind of Land Best Suited and
How to Prepare 1t.
Select fine, gray, moist spot with
sunny exposure, along the hollows,
or near little drains in the woods.
Rake off the leaves and lay down
small poles-about CD three inches
in diameter-four or FIVE feet apart,
all over the size you wish the bed.
Through the middle, on a width of
eight or ten feet, cover with wood
eighteen or twenty inches deep.
Chink in with dry wood and brush
sufficient to burn till the "skids" or
poles beneath are consumed. Now
with hooks or hoes fastened to long
handles, pull the remaining wood
and chunks in opposite directions
over space of six or eight feet !;
throw on enough wood to burn as
before, and so continue till all the
space is gone over, Now clear out
the chunks and Goals, and hoe up with
grub bing hoe to the depth Of three
inches, taking care to loosen the soil
without bringing the clay to the sur
face. Now make liberal application
of hog pen or hen manure previously
prepared by chopping fine. This is
then chopped in with hilIing or weed
ing hoes and the soil made perfectly
fine by repeated rakings.
If the location is fiat lay off in beds
six feet wide, with small shallow
trenches between for the drains. II
rolling none will be needed. The bed
is now ready for the seed.
Mix we'll, in about peck of ashes,
one tablespoonful of seed to forty (4o>
square yards. Mark off with hoe or
rake handle in widths of about foul
feet, and sow over, using about hal
the seed; then mark across and SOW
the other half. This is done to secure
regular seeding. Now tramp the
patch over with the feet or compress
the soil with small roller, cover thick
ly with brush, fence in and ditct
around to keep off surface water.
The beds can be thus prepared a
any time, when the soil is sufficiently
dry, from the 18th of November te
tine 1st of March and no further atten
tion will be needed till the plants are
we'll up and square or have four leaves
At this stage the s'nursing" must begir
Sprinkle over it at midday, or early
in the afternoon, some fine concen
trated fertilizer at the rate of half a
peck per fifty square yards, once a
week, and increase the quantity as the
plants grow. Fresh stable or hen ma
nure, dried in the sun and finally pull
verized, and applied at the rate o
half bushel-more or less, according
TO the strength-to the fifty squar'
yards is about the best substitute for ;
concentrated fertilizer. The point i
to bring the plants on early, in tim
to transplant, from the 10th to tn
2oth Of May.
After the plant begins to cove
the ground, remove the brush, picl
out the grass and weeds, continuing
to manure as before directed. No
less than 40 square yards should b.
burned and seeded for every acre al
lotted for the crop.
a light gray sandy soil, with yellow
clay subsoil is the favorite, but Tobacco
of equally fine texture and favor i
made on fine white floury land witt
similar subsoil. On any light, thi1
soil with a growth of huckleberry
sourwood, chinquepin, persimmon
post oak, black jack or either {
them, the fine yellow will grow. Som
of our best planters select old field
grows up in pines or broom sedge.
A liberal application of fertilizer
in an all important prerequisite.
PREPARATION OF SOIL.
J New woodland, or piney old fiel
requires the same preparation in win
ter or early spring as for corn or cot
ton.
In March or April the soil shoul,
be made fine by repeated draggin
and blowing. Now with shovel plov
lay off the rows from three to thre
and half feet apart, the stronge
soil requiring the wider rows.
Ifhouse manure is to be use
stable and cowpen-let it be nike
and scattered thinly in drill furrow:
so as to 60 over the whole area, an
follow with the concentrated fertilize
at the rate Of 200 to $50 pounds pc
ace If none of the former is use
apply the latter at the rate of 900 t
$50 pounds according to strength {
soil. Tine land is then bedded wit
ordinary turning plow, and with
hoe made into hills three Cd feet apa'
from center to center. Smooth o
, these until they present fiat surfac
Of IS or 20 inches in diameter an
"pat" in the center with the hot
Now they are ready for setting tn
, plants when the proper season arrive
, The making Of hills with the hoe
, an expensive and tedious process, br
. is still almost universally practicee
Except in very rough new land tn
writer has long since abandoned th
hoe and adopted the following process
which answers equally IS we'll or bette
and saves great amount Of time an
labor.
/ Take two boards one and a ha
inches thick, six or eight inches wide
and about tour feet long. Slope or
: end to a point and back some TWEEN,