gained by plowing under green crops, although but little effect is observed until the succeeding year.

The tobacco grower should be a stock raiser as well. If not, his farm will become impoverished in time. The worn out acres of Virginia, are a sample of what will exist in our state unless our farmers take warning in time.

Every tobacco field should be plowed in the fall, and before the second crop is killed by freezing. If manure is not spread on the land in autumn the field should be manured and plowed as early in the spring as the frost will admit. It should be plowed again very finely just before planting, harrowed thoroughly, and rolled, preparatory to marking. In marking for Havana, the distance between hills should be thirty inches, and for broad leaf thirty-six inches. This will give an abundance of room for growth and cultivation. The hills should be raised but little, three inches at most, above the surrounding surface, and should contain no straw, tobacco stalks, or lumps of earth.

Tobacco seed should be sown as early in the spring as the frost will allow the ground to be worked. The plant bed should have a warm location, and be protected from cold winds, by timber, fence or buildings. The ground should be as free from noxious seed as possible, heavily manured with fine well rotted material, and either finely plowed or well spaded. It should be thoroughly harrowed, and then raked until pulverized. No lump of earth should be left on or near the surface. One drachm of seed is sufficient for a square rod. If too much seed is sown the plants will be weak, tender, and spindle, whereas the stalk should be short and the leaves broad.

Plants large enough for setting may be obtained, from one to three weeks earlier, from sprouted seed, than from dry seed. The germination may be facilitated by putting the seed in a woolen bag, dipping the bag in warm water two or three times a day, and exposing to constant warmth, or the seed may be mixed with pulverized rotten wood, which should be kept moist and warm. This should be sown as soon as germination is apparent. To sow seed uniformly, mix with white sand, plaster or flour. After sowing, roll or tread the bed very firmly, and cover with thin cotton cloth

or clean straw. If the atmosphere is hot and dry, the covering should be removed, the beds thoroughly drenched with water and the covering replaced. When young plants exhibit leaves, the covering should be abandoned. Two or three crops should be sown in succession, at intervals of ten or twelve days.

So far as the large varieties are concerned, early planting should be the rule, in order to avoid early frost in field and shed. Havana tobacco requiring less time to mature and cure, may be planted later in the season. None but thrifty, spreading stock should be set, as the character of the crop largely depends upon the manner in which it is started. Care should be taken that the soil is well packed around the roots and that the latter are not doubled upon themselves, as they are put in the hill.

Cultivation should be commenced as soon after planting as the land will permit. The soil should be kept loose, especially if the ground is dry and the atmosphere sultry. No farm product is more benefited by constant cultivation than this. The hoe should be used freely to remove weeds and loosen the soil around the plants. An instrument that answers well the purposes of both hoe and cultivator, is the Prout horse hoe, which is being built by Fuller & Johnson, of Madison, Wisconsin. These hoes are used largely in Connecticut, and so far as used in this state, give universal satisfaction to growers of the weed.

Tobacco should be topped as soon as the crop is in full blossom. It is the custom with some (and it is a good one), to top as soon as the buds show uniformity over the field. Thus much nutrition is saved that otherwise would be wasted. Great discretion should be used in this process. "Top low," should be the motto. Large, heavily bodied leaves are much more desirable than small light bodied ones. From fourteen to eighteen leaves on a stalk of Spanish, or from twelve to sixteen on a stalk of broad leaf are all that should be left. The number should be governed by size of plant.

The horned worm sometimes commits great depredations on this vegetable. As he is a great chewer he requires watching. The only method for his destruction is to pick or

brush him from the plant and crush him. When this parasite is first discovered, care must be taken, or he will make great ravages on the crop. The ordinary gray cut-worm sometimes proves very damaging to the young plants, and necessitates much resetting. He may be found in the earth near the plant and destroyed.

As soon as the tobacco is topped, sprouts make their appearance at the junction of stalk and leaf, and should be picked off. Labor in their removal will pay better than any other of equal amount expended on the crop. As often as they start they should be removed, as they rob the leaves of their nutrition. Before tobacco is cut these suckers must be thorougly removed.

Before harvesting, tobacco should be fully ripe, when it will present a mottled appearance, and the leaf, when doubled upon itself, will break with a sharp fracture. Many growers judge of the ripeness of the plant by the time that has elapsed since it was topped, and thus are led to harvest a green crop, which is necessarily light and inferior in quality. Quality of soil and weather have much to do with its maturity. Grown on sandy soil it ripens more rapidly than on clay loam, and in dry, hot weather much sooner than in damp, cool weather.

Nothing but condition can be a wise criterion by which to judge of its fitness for harvesting. It must be ripe to have body, weight and quality. When the plant is cut and left on the ground to wilt, care must be observed if the sky is clear and weather very warm, or it will be burned by the sun. It is well to turn it over once or twice, but still better to string it as fast as cut, and hung on horses to wilt before it is drawn to the shed. From six to ten pounds, according to size, may be strung on a lath.

The practice of loading on wagon bottoms has been abandoned by careful growers, and racks just wide enough to receive a lath are used, as the former mode bruised the tobacco badly. Care should be taken in hanging in shed that plenty of room is allowed, or the crop will burn or pole sweat, and thereby be destroyed.

From six to eight inches should be allowed between laths. Distance must depend upon size of plants. The most popu

lar model of tobacco shed is this: well timbered, twentyeight feet wide, with walls fourteen feet high, covered with dimension boards, and roof covered with shingles, ventilator extending whole length of ridge, with trap doors on side. These doors twelve inches wide and hung at the upper edge, can be raised for the purpose of draft or the escape of steam from below, and closed to exclude snow or rain. Some of the boards on the wall are hung to admit air if necessary. Driveways may be lengthways or crossways of the building, to suit fancy or convenience of the farmer.

After hanging in shed the utmost care is necessary to guard against damage. If the atmosphere is damp and temperature high, the crop is liable to burn or rot, and the shed should be thrown wide open during the day and closed at night if a fog prevails. While tobacco should have sufficient air, it should not be allowed to cure too rapidly, as the color and quantity are injured thereby.

Tobacco should be assorted into not less than four grades, viz.: long and short, wrappers, binders, and fillers. Care should be taken that no rusty, shed-burned, worm-eaten, or damaged leaves are assorted as wrappers. It is better for the grower to make his wrappers perfect. Everything otherwise should be classed as binders or fillers. Not more than twenty leaves should be bound in a hand. Care should be taken that the hand is neatly bound.

As the crop is stripped it should be "bulked" in a cool place, and protected from wind, rain and snow. If not sold soon after stripping, it is well to pack in cases, the better to protect it from accident.

I will say in conclusion, as your honored secretary, Gen. Bryant, said at the meeting of the tobacco growers in 1881. "grow the best tobacco you can, make all the money you can, and ask the Lord to forgive you."

On motion, the thanks of the convention were tendered to Dr. Lord for his paper.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. Sayer-I am very much pleased with the Doctor's paper- the conservative way that he puts it. In speaking of what is done, I shall not speak of the moral effects at all. I shall confine myself to its financial aspects entirely. I want a grain of allowance for my prejudice against it, as I am the only farmer in my vicinity who does not raise tobacco. In the first place, the raising of tobacco from my observation is not financially a success. The first count in the indictment I would bring against it is, that no line of business can be legitimate which holds out large promises in the commencement, and often results in failure. It is speculative. The promise in the spring is that if the tobacco crop can be raised the rest of the crops may go to Botany Bay; if the farmer can raise his tobacco he can buy his corn and wheat and everything else that he wants. The result five years in seven is that the crop is a failure compared to what it promised in the spring. Instead of buying your corn and wheat and fodder from the results of your tobacco, you go without. Let me illustrate. In 1881 the tobacco crop was the best and most remunerative crop that was ever grown in our part of the country, the north part of Rock and the southern part of Dane county. The crop sold on the average for thirteen or fourteen cents. It commenced about twelve and a half and run up to seventeen, and on some crops as high as nineteen cents. The crop brought from $150 to $250 and $300 an acre. Now the tobacco men might come to me and say, "What can you show on your farm to compare with that?" I frankly confess I can show nothing to compare with it as far as that crop is concerned. In 1882 the crop is put in with this large promise of gain. The average acreage is increased. Young men and old men go into it. They stake all upon it. They thought if they could get another crop like that they could go swimming- they could pay off their debts. In 1882 they got a crop that stood well on the ground. It was acknowledged to be even heavier than the crop of 1881. They put it into the shed. The murky weather in a few days begins to have its effect upon it, and it is shed-burned, and when they come to take it down in January they find the crop is