“ The interior is very much like a rick-yard, with tobacco stalks instead of hay-ricks, among which a perfect army of half-clad Chinese coolies, 400 strong, are hard at work sorting, ranging and stowing. So overpoweringly strong is the scent of the half-dried tobacco leaves that a smoker would have nothing to do but to take in an empty pipe with him and enjoy a good hard smoke gratis, merely by inhaling the air through it. ”

“ Schlösing has pointed out that the good burning qualities of a tobacco depend on the presence in it of potash in combination with a vegetable acid; that a soil deficient in potash is unfit to produce tobacco of good quality. Numerous analyses have tended not only to corroborate the assertion made by Schlösing, but to demonstrate also, that it is not the total amount of potash, but the potash found as a carbonate, which existed in the plant in combination with a vegetable acid, that is the constituent chiefly affecting the combustibility of a tobacco. ”

“ CURING. Growing tobacco is only half the battle. Having raised a crop to a state of perfection, the next object is to cure it for the market. This branch of the business demands fully as much care and skill as the purely agricultural part preceding it, and is perhaps equally influenced by the weather. ”

“ Each veguero or farmer should make a hole or rotting-bin in which he should deposit as much muck and leaves as he may be able to accumulate, and, before giving the last ploughing to prepare his field for planting the tobacco, he should spread over it all the prepared rotten manure he can procure. Manure that is not thoroughly rotten injures the plants more than benefits them. A piece of land, well manured and thoroughly worked up, will produce four times more tobacco than one badly prepared would. Consequently no expense or labour is so remunerative as that which is applied to the soil. ”

“ The crop is limited in quantity by that condition of growth, which is presented to it most sparingly. The richest and best prepared soil without solar warmth, or without due supplies of rain, cannot give a crop, and if weather be most favourable, then in one field it may be too little potash, in another too little phosphoric acid, in another too little nitrogen, which lowers the yield, or reduces the quality of the product.
“It is usual in tobacco culture to manure very heavily, and in many cases it is probable that all the various forms of plant food are present in available abundance. ”

“ Often (we believe generally) the greater part of manure applied to tobacco—and this is true of the ‘bought’ fertilizer as well as of that made on the farm—is lost to that crop from being applied too late. Don’t wait to apply your dearly-purchased guano in the hill or the drill from fear that, if applied sooner, it will vanish into thin air before the plant needs it. This is an exploded fallacy. Experience, our best teacher, has demonstrated beyond cavil that stable and commercial manure are most efficacious when used in conjunction. ”

“ The fertilizer acts on the soil, and the soil reacts on the fertilizer; but the point we wish to make prominent is this, that different soils are differently affected by one and the same application, or in other words, a given manure fertilizes a given crop unequally in degree, and unlike in kind, on different soils, by virtue of the different assimilating or fixing power, which the soil exerts upon its ingredients. ”

“ Doubtless certain definite amounts of potash, lime, magnesia, iron, sulphuric acid and phosphoric acid are absolutely necessary to produce a given weight of tobacco. In case several or all these substances are superabundant in the soil, the plant has no power to exclude any unnecessary surplus of one or all of them from its interior altogether, although there are good reasons known to prevent their entrance beyond a certain limit. In one soil potash may be relatively most abundant, and may for that reason be found in the crop in greater quantity than was necessary for the growth of that crop. ”

“ When the plantations are out of proportion to the strength of the labour which can be counted on, all the work becomes slowly and badly done, and these faults most sensibly prejudice both the yield and the quality of the crop, and consequently the interest of the planter. ”

“ First appears a cutworm that works in the soil and eats the roots off. Then comes a little caterpillar which enjoys itself on the young leaves, and lastly the beautiful and large tobacco-worm, which eats into the leaf, and in a short time leaves nothing but the leaf-stems and stalk. The only remedies against these enemies are the vigilance and industry of the planter—looking after them, digging up, picking, and destroying once or twice a day, or as often as there are any traces of them. Children, to whom premiums are offered, will be very successful in destroying them. ”

“ A warm, moist climate permits the selection of those sorts that command the highest prices; if to this be added a suitable soil, and proper treatment, the cultivation of tobacco yields a profit not easily obtainable from any other crop.
As the Havanna tobaccos command the highest prices, the cultivator nearly everywhere attempts to introduce and cultivate them. There is no great difficulty in raising plants of these varieties, but they speedily degenerate and form new varieties, if the climatic conditions, &c., are not favourable. ”

“ Seek to have a forward crop, as the benefits claimed for a late one from the fall dews do not compensate for the many advantages resulting from early maturity. Make it an inflexible rule to plant no tobacco after the 10th of July—we mean, of course, in the tobacco belt we have named. Where one good crop is made from later planting ninety-nine prove utter failures. ”

“ One soil will lay hold of the potash in a fertilizer, and fix it in a kind of chemical combination so firmly that water can dissolve it but with extreme slowness; another soil puts its grasp on the lime of a fertilizer, and at the same time allows potash which belongs to itself to be dissolved out freely. There is, in fact, always a complicated series of changes set in operation whenever any fertilizer is incorporated with the soil, be it animal, vegetable, or mineral; be it alkali, acid, or saline ”

“ The small landholder is often obliged to grow tobacco on the same field, because he has only one properly fitted for it; for convenience, he grows it every year on the same place near his homestead, to allow of the closest attention to the crop, but he manures heavily. Nessler, in Carlsruhe, cultivated tobacco during six consecutive years in the same field, without noticing any perceptible decrease in yield or quality. To admit of such a system, the soil must either be very rich in the essential elements, or be heavily manured, as is the practice in Holland. ”

“ We have described the manner of washing or dyeing, in making the gavillas, and tying them in bundles as the most practical vegueros do. In this part we should not, we think, advise any innovation, except that of using old seasoned tobacco instead of fresh for making the infusion, and substituting a decoction made by boiling, instead of an infusion in cold water. But we strongly advise a reform in the sorting and the classification; and a fixed number of each class of leaves should be put in each gavilla, as a basis from which to start all calculations for mercantile transactions. ”

“ Hay is more exhausting than tobacco as measured by total export from the soil, but grass grows the whole year throughout, save when the ground is frozen or covered with snow, or for more than 8 months. The period of active growth which is required to mature a hay crop, begins indeed in April, and is finished by July, a period of 3 months, but during the year previous, for at least 5 months, in case of the first crop, the grass plants have been getting a hold upon the soil, filling it with their roots, and storing up food in their root-stocks or bulbs, for the more rapid aftergrowth. ”

“ It is impossible to indicate the precise form in which each kind of tobacco-leaf is manufactured for use; indeed, no well-defined line marks the qualifications of each sort, and the great art of the manufacturer is to combine the various growths in a manner to produce an article suited to the tastes of his customers, at a price suited to their pockets. But, in a general way, it may be said that Havana and Manilla are probably exclusively consumed in the form of cigars; Virginia is a favourite for cavendish, negrohead, and black twist, and is largely converted into returns, shag, and snuff ”

“ Black river-bottoms will yield more to the acre than any other kind of land, but the tobacco is not of so fine a quality; it grows larger, has coarser stems, and heavier body, and consequently, in my opinion, is not so good for wrappers or fine cut as the second bottom or upland tobacco.”
On the same subject, an Illinois grower observes, “for us in the West, and for all the localities that have not an over-amount of heat, experience has proved, that a dry, warm soil (loam or sandy loam) , rich, deep, and containing lime, is most suitable for tobacco. ”

“ Going about through the crop, topping a plant here and there because it may chance to have buttoned before its fellows, is a damaging process not to be tolerated.
“No inflexible rule can be given for the number of leaves that should be left on a plant. All depends upon the variety of tobacco, the strength of the soil, the promise of the particular plant, the probable seasons and time left for ripening, &c. ”

“ On the condition of these albuminoids, and on the presence of other substances, as nitric acid, alkalies, &c., in the tobacco, mostly depend the burning qualities of the leaf, and the flavour of a cigar. The Eastern habit in smoking, from Malaysia, Japan and China, through India, Persia and Turkey, even to Hungary, is to inhale the smoke into the lungs, and natives of these countries maintain that a tobacco should be of full flavour without burning the throat or catching the breath. Western nations do not admit the smoke further than the mouth, and therefore require a strong, rank flavour. ”

“ The farm-made manure is likely to be much richer in potash and lime, and the city manure is richer in phosphates and nitrogen. Yet in the reports of the farmer, these two essentially different fertilizers are designated as stable manure simply.
21“Every one understands that a fertilizer acts upon the plant to supply it with food, and to favour its growth; everybody is also convinced that some fertilizers act upon the soil, improving its texture and composition and increasing its fertility. It is an equally well ascertained fact that the soil acts upon fertilizers to modify their effect. ”

“ Rich, fertile bottom-lands will grow only heavy, strong tobacco, and it is the interest of the farmer to select that kind of seed that will produce the plant of the greatest weight; in other words, to make weight the prominent object in the result of the crop. Thinner, poorer land will produce tobacco of lighter weight, but of finer and more desirable quality, and one that will bring a correspondingly higher price. The Orinoco tobacco is raised extensively in Missouri and Kentucky for heavy tobacco, and is known in market as Kentucky Leaf. ”