WHAT THE EXPERIMENT STATIONS HAVE LEARNED ABOUT RAISING AND CURING TOBACCO.

BY DR. E. H. JENKINS, NEW HAVEN, CONN.

It would be hard to say just what the stations- entirely apart from experienced tobacco growers - had learned about raising and curing the weed. It would be quite as hard to say what experienced tobacco growers, without any hint or help from the station, had learned about these same things within the last ten years. And the reason why it is difficult to say just what each has separately done is, because our stations and our growers have all the while worked together. In Connecticut, at least, no other class of farmers calls on the station so constantly for its help as the tobacco growers. This is as it should be. The tobacco grower meets very strong competition, and knows that the only safe way to meet it is by superior quality of leaf. And he knows that in some ways the chemist, the botanist and the experimenter can help him. The station man certainly knows that he cannot experiment on growing tobacco without the constant help of an experienced practical grower. We all are, or should be, workers together for the same end.

But what we want now are the facts about tobacco, no matter who first got hold of them. "Spot" knowledge is what we are after.

Of course, we are now talking wholly of wrapper leaf, such as is raised almost exclusively in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

In the first place, then, we have learned that the fineness or texture of the soil largely fixes the color, and, to some degree, the texture of the leaf. That is, light cinnamonbrown leaf, as a rule, can only be raised on sandy, light lands, which are nearly free from loam or clay. No known

variety of seed, no special fertilizer or method of growing will give a light-colored leaf on a loam or clay soil.

On the other hand, very dark colors cannot be produced on light, sandy land, except, perhaps, by using animal fertilizers, rich in nitrogen, and in quantity large enough to spoil the texture, burn or taste of the leaf.

Our best tobacco soils are too light for staple farm crops, but heavily manured, make excellent garden-truck farms for quick-growing spring vegetables. They rarely have over five per cent of clay in them.

On the other hand, the main crop of Pennsylvania tobacco is grown on limestone soil, which may contain thirty per cent or more of clay. Hence the Pennsylvania wrapper is, on the average, much darker than the Connecticut valley wrapper. But if the fashion changes, so that dark wrappers become popular again, our lightest tobacco lands must be abandoned and the heavier "meadow" land taken up.

The following table, taken from Professor Whitney's Bulletin No. 11, on the tobacco soils of the United States, page 18, gives averages of mechanical analyses of various types of soils on which wrappers, fillers and binders are grown:

Our Connecticut and Massachusetts "meadow lands," to which I referred as producing a darker leaf, are not really clay soils, but contain a large amount of fine silt, the next thing to clay, and are retentive of moisture.

A soil expert, by determining the fineness of the soil in his laboratory, can say positively whether a soil will grow a light-colored leaf or not, just as the experienced grower may judge of the same thing pretty accurately by the feeling of the soil.

The important thing for the practical farmer is to remember that his success in tobacco growing. as in any other kind of farming—is settled for him by the kind of soil he selects for the crop. He can't gather figs off thistles, nor kick against the pricks. On loams he may raise a good mahogany-colored wrapper, on clayey soil he may raise fine filler tobacco, but on neither, can he raise the lightestcolored, fine-textured wrapper leaf.

Again, connected with this matter of soil texture is the water content of tobacco soils. It is quite possible that the water supply is the thing which regulates this matter of color and texture of leaf, the water supply being in turn regulated largely by the soil texture. Our best tobacco soils seldom contain more than 7 or 8 per cent of moisture, to a depth of 8 inches, during the summer. I have seen it drop to nearly 6 per cent for a time, without hurting the crop. But the meadow lands," which yield heavier, darker tobacco, contain from 20 to 28 per cent. The best Pennsylvania soils carry 18 per cent, and the limestone clay soils, suitable only for growing filler leaf, have from 22 to 23 per cent of moisture.

Note this low percentage of moisture in our best tobacco soils, - only 7 per cent. It is strange that such a large, leafy plant as tobacco can do well in a soil too dry for potatoes, sometimes too dry for corn.

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But it is clear that tobacco has only a small "margin of safety" as regards moisture. Only a slight drop in the water content of the soil will damage or ruin the crop. drought which does not seriously hurt corn will injure tobacco. The crop depends on frequent rains, evenly distributed through the season, and on skilful cultivation to

keep the soil water from evaporating through the soil, instead of through the crop. If the crop, at any time after it is half grown, is pinched for two weeks in its water supply, it is sure to be of inferior quality. Considering this small supply of water which our best tobacco lands have and the great inequality in our summer rains, as well as the great damage done by a short season of drought, a chance to irrigate tobacco fields is a great help.

One of our best growers in Connecticut has a dam, making a pond, from which he can irrigate the crop when necessary, and he does this about two years out of every three. The water is run through between the rows, rapidly, till it reaches the further end of the field, and is then shut off and turned into other rows. He has saved some crops from total failure, and oftener has protected them from serious damage.

This last season our experiment tobacco, on a little drier land, to be sure, was damaged by a dry spell, while his tobacco, with a single irrigation, kept right on and made a perfect crop.

Much is done, however, to protect tobacco in a dry time, by judicious and constant cultivation; much harm is done, too, by cultivation of another kind. I find men who say that you supply the plants with moisture by throwing up the damp earth against the stalks and the mass of roots near them, in a dry time. This is nonsense. If you want to dry out your land near the surface, cultivate it deeply, the deeper the better. If you want to keep the moisture in it in a dry time, cultivate it just as shallow as you can. Break the surface crust; that is all. Don't bring any damp earth All the earth which you

to the surface if you can help it. stir is the drier for it, but what you do not stir will not lose its water as quickly for the stirring. After rains, deeper cultivation will do no harm, it may help to aerate the soil; but in a drought go over the surface as lightly as you can. If you could cover the ground with empty fertilizer bags, they would hold the moisture as well as could be. Instead of that, make a layer of light, fluffy earth with your cultivator, but not much thicker than a fertilizer bag.

So much for soil texture and soil moisture.