32
agricültübe on the rhine.
of the land. This is equivalent to 14s. and 16s. per acre.
Some details respecting this crop, which one of those
laws that are intended to puzzle posterity has excluded
from English, rotations, may be acceptable to our readers.
The plants are raised in a hotbed and transplanted.
The hotbed consists of a pit a foot deep filled with cow-
dung, and covered five inches with earth, on w'hich a light
frame is placed that is covered with oiled paper instead
of glass, and sufficiently sloped to throw’ off the rain.
Horse-dung is found to be too hot for the plants, and it
throws up fungi, near wrhich the tobacco does not thrive.
A bed of 320 square feet will hold plants enough for two
acres of land. The seed is sown in March, and must be
strewed equally over the bed, that the plants may be of
like size. The measure here used for 300 square feet is
fifteen Dutch pipes-full, a measure more amusing to read
of than difficult to use. When the seed is sown, the
frame is shut up, and the crevices everywhere closed with
moist clay or cow-dung. The covers are lifted in dry
weather every three days, in rainy periods every six days ;
the bed is watered sufficiently to keep it a little moist.
The ground which is to be planted with tobacco must
be ploughed five or six times. With the last ploughing
but two the dung is worked in. The last ploughing but
one brings the dung up to the surface, and it is again
covered with the last ploughing. The soil is thus
thoroughly mixed with the dung. The land, if large
enough, is divided into beds, and the plants are dibbled
in along aline, the dibble, of two feet and a half in length,
serving to measure the space between the plants. The
plantingout takes place in April : one hoeing in the sum-
Agricultube on the bhine.
33
mer suffices where the land is perfectly clean. The leaves
sprout until the stem has twelve to fourteen upon it, when
the top is plucked off. The lowest leaves are here called
the sand-leaves, “Sandgut;” above these are the earth-
leaves, “ Erdgut,” which are larger and thicker ; the
uppermost are the best leaves, “ Bestgut.” The plucking
commences with the lowest, or sand leaves, which are
bound on the field in bundles by themselves ; the earth-
leaves are next picked, and kept apart from the others ;
the best leaves are taken off last. When the leaves are
carted home, on which occasion care is taken to keep the
bundles as clean as possible, a slit is made in the stalk at
the thick end of the leaf, and the leaves are piled up
until they begin to wither. They are then strung on
poles, to be hung up in the drying-shed. This shed has
walls of open wicker-work, and there are openings in the
roof to facilitate a thorough draught. The peasants hang
up their leaves in the haylofts over their stables ; but
the moist effluvia from below is found to injure the leaf.
When the leaves are partially dried they are piled (the
qualities each apart) in square heaps to ferment, and
these heaps are broken up and reconstructed occasionally,
to allow the bundles that at one time lay outside to be
placed in the middle, until all are equally heated. The
tobacco is then sold to the manufacturer, and, as ten
plants yield one pound weight, the return is considerable,
being often 60 dollars for a Prussian morgen, or 151.15s.
per English acre. Of this one-third is estimated to cover
the labour, and contracts are frequently made by the
richer growers with labourers on a footing of this kind.
The labourer, however, frequently contracts to find plants
and even dung. If he finds the plants alone, his share is