g else is really subordinate to it. The soils of the uplands
and lowlands are adapted to very different varieties of this staple.
That which grows in the rich loam of the bottoms is known as "shipping
tobacco," because it is chiefly consumed abroad, as it bears
transportation in the rough state without injury to its quality.
"Working tobacco" is the name which is given to the variety that
flourishes on the hills; and this is used in the manufacture of brands
of chewing- and smoking-tobacco to meet the domestic as well as the
foreign demand. There is a third variety which grows in small quantities
on the plantation,--namely, "yellow tobacco," so called from the golden
color of the plant as it approaches ripeness; and this tint is not only
retained, but also heightened, when it has been cured, at which time it
is as light in weight as so much snuff. This variety is principally used
as a wrapper for bundles of the inferior kinds, and is prepared for the
market by a very tedious and expensive process; but the trouble thus
entailed and the money spent have their compensation in the very high
prices which it always brings in the market.

The fields where tobacco has been cultivated during the previous summer
are sown in wheat in the autumn, unless they are new grounds, when the
rotation of crops is tobacco for two years in succession, followed in
the third year by wheat, and in the fourth by tobacco again. The soil is
then laid under the same rule of tillage as land that has been worked
for many seasons. As a result of this necessity for rotation, much wheat
is raised on the plantation, although the threshing of it interferes
very seriously with the attention which the tobacco requires at a very
critical period of its growth. The greater part of the low-grounds is
planted in Indian corn, the return in a good year being very large; and
even when there has been a drought, the general average in quantity and
quality falls short very little. The soil here is so fertile that
tobacco planted in it grows too coarse in its fibre, while the cost of
cultivating it is so high that the planter is reluctant to run the risk
of an overflow of the river, which destroys a crop at any stage in a few
hours. Although corn is very much injured by the same cause, it is not
rendered wholly useless, for it can be thrown to stock even when it is
unfit to be ground into meal. At a certain season the fields of this
grain along the river present a beauti