makes the
heaviest, richest shipping, and can only be grown to
perfection on alluvial or heavily manured lands. The
Frederick or Maryland grows larger, but is not so rich and
waxy. The Oronoko is far preferable for fillers, smokers or
wrappers, being sweeter in flavor, finer in fibre and
texture, and more easily cured yellow. This is the kind best
adapted to our gray soils, giving best returns. The product
is not so large as on black or brown lands, yet with skill
in curing and management, the difference in product is more
than made up in quality.

"The Oronoko, therefore, is the only kind suited to our gray
lands, and of this there are several varieties, the two
most in favor being the yellow Oronoko, and the Gooch or
Pride of Granville. The first is the kind that gave
character to the Caswell (North Carolina) yellow tobacco
more than twenty years ago, and is still preferred by a very
large number of planters who grow the finest yellow smokers
and wrappers. The latter is preferred in Granville county,
North Carolina, that produces the finest yellow tobacco
grown on this continent, or, perhaps, in the world. This
latter is clearly an Oronoko tobacco, very much resembling
the former, except that the leaf grows rather broader, and
by some is considered sweeter. These two kinds have been
grown with special reference to their adaptation to
producing the finest quality of wrappers, smokers, and
fillers. I am satisfied that the art of curing and
management have not only been very far advanced toward
scientific perfection, but that in perfecting the kinds of
seed grown much improvement has been made. For instance, in
the saving of seed, by adopting the plan of turning out the
forwardest plants growing in the best soil, and afterwards
observing to cut off all the heads of plants that ripen up
coarse, narrow or ill-shaped, or of a green color on the
hill, and saving only those heads that ripen yellow in color
and of a smooth and fine texture, much has been done to
improve the kind. Besides, the most important point in the
saving of tobacco seed is to cut off all the lateral shoots,
leaving only three crown shoots to perfect seed, thereby
securing larger pods and more perfect seed that always ripen
in good time, and are more reli