ithful to their thermometer--their piety
not permitting them to know any other. To the mysterious
influence of the day, without regard to the season, they
ascribe their success and they generally succeed." Bickinson
gives an account of the manner of making the plant bed in the East
Indian Archipelago. He says:
"Not far from us is a hut inhabited by
two natives, who are engaged in cultivating tobacco. Their
_ladangs_, or gardens, are merely places of an acre or less,
where the thick forest has been partially destroyed by fire,
and the seed is sown in the regular spaces between the
stumps."

After making the plant bed and tending through the weeding season, the
next step to be taken is the

CHOICE OF GROUND

for the tobacco fields. Tobacco, unlike any other plant, readily
adapts itself to soil and climate. The effect produced upon the plant
may be seen in comparing the tobacco of Holland and France, the one
raised upon low, damp ground, the other on a sandy loam. The early
growers of the plant in Virginia, were very particular in the
selection of soil for the plant. The lands which they found best
adapted were the light red, or chocolate-colored mountain lands, the
light black mountain soil in the coves of the mountains, and the
richest low grounds.

Tatham says: "The condition of soil of which the planters
make choice, is that in which nature presents it when it is
first disrobed of the woods with which it is naturally
clothed throughout every part of the country; hence in the
parts where this culture prevails, this is termed new
ground, which may be there considered as synonymous with
tobacco ground. Thus the planter is continually cutting down
new ground, and every successive spring presents an
additional field, or opening of tobacco (for it is not
necessary to put much fence round that kind of crop); and to
procure this new ground you will observe him clearing the
woods from the sides of the steepest hills, which afford a
suitable soil; for a Virginian never thinks of reinstating
or manuring his land with economy until he can find no more
new land to exhaust, or wear out as he calls it; and,
besides, the tobacco which is produced from manured or
cow-penned land, is only considered, in ordinary, to be a
crop of second quality. It will hence be perceived