heer with water when
the time becometh a little dry. It hateth cold, and
therefore to keepe it from dying in winter, it must be
either kept in cellars where it may have free benefit of
air, or else in some cave made on purpose within the same
garden, or else to cover it as with a cloak very well with a
double mat, making a penthouse of wicker work from the wall
to cover the head thereof with straw laid thereupon: and
when the southern sun shineth, to open the door of the
covert made for the said herb right upon the said South
sun."

The most ludicrous part of "The discourse on Nicotian" will be found
in that portion which relates to the making of the plant-bed and
transplanting:--

"For to sow it, you must make a hole in the earth with your
finger and that as deep as your finger is long, then you
must cast into the same hole ten or twelve seeds of the said
Nicotiana together, and fill up the hole again: for it is so
small, as that if you should put in but four or five seeds
the earth would choake it: and if the time be dry, you must
water the place easily some five days after: And when the
herb is grown out of the earth, inasmuch as every seed will
have put up his sprout and stalk, and that the small thready
roots are intangled the one within the other, you must with
a great knife make a composs within the earth in the places
about this plot where they grow and take up the earth and
all together, and cast them into a bucket full of water, to
the end that the earth may be seperated, and the small and
tender impes swim about the water; and so you shall sunder
them one after another without breaking of them." * *

THE STALK.

The Tobacco stalk varies with the varieties of the plant. All of the
species cultivated in the United States have stalks of a large
size--much larger than many varieties grown in the tropics. Those of
some species of tobacco are little and easily broken, which to a
certain extent is the case with most varieties of the plant when
maturing very fast. The stalks of some plants are rough and uneven,
while those of others are smooth. Nearly all, including most of those
grown in Europe and America, have erect, round, hairy, viscid stalks,
and large, fibrous roots; while that of Spanish as well as dwarf
tobacco is harder and much smaller. The stalk is composed of a
wood-