The mirror., 1919-11-20
TOBACCO PRODUCTION
Tobacco Culture Science. From Whence Comes-to
Where it Goes. Hailed and Inhaled
Earls ". Gage in Grit.

popular in some sections of Russia,
where the primitive peasant has
not yet acquired the sensibilities of
civilization.
Early pioneers of the James
town, Va, colony introduced the
first milder tobacco varieties from
the West Indies, but even these
colonists were much hardier .
smokers than modern men. They
rolled the raw leaf into cigars and
smoked it in pipes without the
modifying processes through
which we put it.
To-day the mild Virginia and
Carolina varieties are daily grow
ing in popularity, being used for
the better grades of American
cigars. pipe tobaccos. as we'll as
several leading kinds of cigarettes.
The area over which this type of
tobacco is produced annually
spreads, and will ultimately reach
the Gulf of Mexico. About 1900
600 acres of our arabic land is de-
voted to the production of tobacco,
which is about one-twentieth of all
our farm lands. Although we are
exporting about 40 per cent. of our
crop for fancy prices, we are
forced to import go, ,OOO, 900 pounds
of rare tobaccos from countries
like Egypt. Italy, Arabia and Tur-
key, which are used in blending
some of the fancy smoking sup
plies.
Each tobacco grower operates a
seed bed, where he develops the
young plants from seed until they
are ready to be transferred to the
open field. In order to kill out
weed seed that may be dormant in
the seed bed it is customary to
sterilize the soil during the winter.
Either the soil is heated to roast
ing temperature by means of
wood fire built ON the bed; else the
top soil of the bed is shoveled into
a sheet iron oven, or large steam
engine blows hot steam through
the top soil, thus sterilizing the
soil.
The fact that the tobacco crop
demands fertile soil to produce
profitable crop, has brought about
a condition demanding scientific
management of the area in which
the crop leads. Farmers have
come to appreciate the necessity of
rotation of crops. using in betv cen
such crops as clover, which is
plowed under. thus adding to the
fertility of the soil. Tobacco stems
are also plowed under, supplying
humus. The tobacco seed is SO
small that usually it is mixed with
q small amount of fertilizer, ashes,
dirt or -cornmeal in order to insure
even distribution. In the case of
no other American farm crop is
good seed more important than in
the instance of tobacco. Usually
the beds are sown any time from
January to the first of April sos
that the plants will be ready for
transfer to the field from the mid
die of June.
The plants are transferred in
rows from three to four feet apart,
three men and two.horse outfit
setting about three acres per day.
The Burley plants are topped; that
is, the top is broken out so that
the leaves will spread and attain
the desired body and depth. Top
ping is exacting work. as the oper-
ator must understand the indivi-
dual plant as well as the soil on
which it is growing. The object
of the operation is to make the
plant produce uniform leaves,
which will all be mature at the
same time.
About 80 days after the tops
have been removed the plants
show yellow spots on the leaves
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