The inventor claimed that the "American
Transplanter" could do the work of several men and do it equally well.
It rolls along the ridge something like a wheelbarrow, marking the
hills with a sharp joint in the wheel and setting the plants as they
are dropped into the receptacles at the top.

The tobacco plant, like most of the vegetable products, has many and
varied foes. Not only is it most easily affected and damaged by wind
and hail, but it seems to be the especial favorite of the insect
world, who, like man, love the taste of the plant. The first of them
"puts in an appearance" immediately after transplanting, which
necessitates the performance of what is known to all growers of the
plant as

WORMING.

[Illustration: The worm.]

There are two kinds of worms that prey upon the plants; viz: the "cut
worm"[76] and the green or "horn worm." The first commences its work
of destruction in a few hours after transplanting in the field. During
the night it begins by eating off the small or central leaves called
by the grower the "chit," and often so effectually as to destroy the
plant. The time chosen by the planter to find these pests of the
tobacco field is early in the morning, when they can be found nearer
the surface than later in the day. Remove the earth around the roots
of the plants, where the worm will generally be found. Occasionally
they are found farther from the hill. If they are numerous, the field
should be "wormed" every morning, or at least every other day, which
labor will be rewarded with a choice collection of primitive tobacco
chewers. Sometimes the worms are very small and difficult to find,
while at other times more are found than are required for the growth
and development of the plants. As soon as they disappear they make way
for the "horn worm" who now takes his turn at a "chaw." By some the
cut worm is considered the most dangerous foe; as it often destroys
the plant, while the other injures the leaf without endangering the
plant. A little plaster sprinkled around the hill sometimes checks
their progress, yet we have never found any remedy that would hinder
their depredations very much. The plants should be kept growing as
soon as transplanted, which will be found the better method, as they
will soon be too large for the cut worm to injure them much, if at
all.

[Footnote 76: Hughes, in his History of Barbadoes, says
that the common people call the worm kitifo