aring the tobacco field
in Virginia by the old planters is quite interesting, and gives some
idea of the amount of labor to be performed on the tobacco
plantation:--

"There are two distinct and separate methods of preparing
the tobacco ground: the one is applicable to the preparation
of new and uncultivated lands, such as are in a state of
nature, and require to be cleared of the heavy timber and
other productions with which Providence has stocked them;
and the other method is designed to meliorate and revive
lands of good foundation, which have been heretofore
cultivated, and, in some measure, exhausted by the calls of
agriculture and evaporation.

"The process of preparing new lands begins as early in the
winter as the housing and managing the antecedent crop will
permit, by grabbing the undergrowth with a mattock; felling
the timber with a poll-axe;[73] lopping off the tops, and
cutting the bodies into lengths of about eleven feet, which
is about the customary length of an American fence rail, in
what is called a worm or panel fence.[74] During this part
of the process the negro women, boys, and weaker laborers,
are employed in piling or throwing the brush-wood, roots,
and small wood, into heaps to be burned; and after such logs
or stocks are selected as are suitable to be malled into
rails, make clapboards, or answer for other more particular
occasions of the planter, the remaining logs are rolled into
heaps by means of hand-spikes and skids; but the
Pennsylvania and German farmers, who are more conversant
with animal powers than the Virginians, save much of this
labor by the use of a pair of horses with a half sledge, or
a pair of truck wheels.

[Footnote 73: This is a short, thick, heavy-headed axe,
of a somewhat oblong shape, with which the Americans
make great dispatch. They treat the English poll-axe
with great contempt, and always work it over again as
old iron before they deem it fit for their use.]

[Footnote 74: The worm or panel fence, originally of
Virginia, consists of logs or malled rails from about
four to six or eight inches thick and eleven feet in
length. A good fence consists of ten rails and a rider.
It is called a worm