be rolled in common
hoops, are made closer in the joints than if they were
intended for the wagon; and are plentifully hooped with
strong hickory hoops (which is the toughest kind of wood),
with the bark upon them, which remains for some distance a
protection against the stones. Two hickory saplings are
affixed to the hogshead, for shafts by boring an auger-hole
through them to receive the gudgeons or pivots, in the
manner of a field rolling-stone; and these receive pins of
wood, square tapered points, which are admitted through
square mortises made central in the heading, and driven a
considerable depth into the solid tobacco. Upon the hind
part of these shafts, between the horses and the hogshead, a
few light planks are nailed, and a kind of little cart body
is constructed of a sufficient size to contain a bag or two
of provender and provision, together with an axe, and such
other tools as may be needed upon the road, in case of
accident. In this manner they set out to the inspection in
companies, very often joining society with the wagons, and
always pursuing the same method of encamping."

The methods of making the plant bed, cultivating and harvesting, by
the early planters may be interesting to all growers of the plant and
are here described as showing the progress made in cutting tobacco
from that time until now.

"In spring red seed, in preference to the white, is put into
a clean pot; milk or stale beer is poured upon it, and it is
left for two or three days in this state; it is then mixed
with a quantity of fine fat earth, and set aside in a hot
chamber, till the seeds begin to put out shoots. They are
then sown in a hot-bed. When the young plants have grown to
a finger's length, they are taken up between the fifteenth
and twenty-second of May, and planted in ground that has
been previously well manured with the dung of doves or
swine. They are placed at square distances of one and a
half-foot from one another. In dry weather, they are now to
be watered with lukewarm water softly showered upon them,
between sunset and twilight. When these plants are full two
feet high, the top of the stems are broken off, to make the
leaves grow thicker and broader. Here and there are left a
few plants without having their tops broken off, in order