ully burn
the timber and plant, tend and finally cut the tobacco on his own
division, for which he is remunerated in accordance with the quality and
quantity of the leaf he is able to bring into the drying sheds. Each
"field," having been cleared as carefully as may be of the felled
timber, is next thoroughly hoed up, and a small "nursery" prepared in
which the seeds provided by the manager are planted and protected from
rain and sun by palm leaf mats (_kajangs_) raised on sticks. In about a
week, the young plants appear, and the Chinese tenant, as I may call
him, has to carefully water them morning and evening. As the young
seedlings grow up, their enemy, the worms and grubs, find them out and
attack them in such numbers that at least once a day, sometimes oftener,
the anxious planter has to go through his nursery and pick them off,
otherwise in a short time he would have no tobacco to plant out. About
thirty days after the seed has been sown, the seedlings are old enough
to be planted out in the field, which has been all the time carefully
prepared for their reception. The first thing to be done is to make
holes in the soil, at distances of two feet one way and three feet the
other, the earth in them being loosened and broken up so that the tender
roots should meet with no obstacles to their growth. As the holes are
ready for them, the seedlings are taken from the nursery and planted
out, being protected from the sun's rays either by fern, or coarse
grass, or, in the best managed estates, by a piece of wood, like a
roofing shingle, inserted in the soil in such a way as to provide the
required shelter. The watering has to be continued till the plants have
struck root, when the protecting shelter is removed and the earth banked
up round them, care being taken to daily inspect them and remove the
worms which have followed them from the nursery. The next operation is
that of "topping" the plants, that is, of stopping their further growth
by nipping off the heads.

According to the richness of the soil and the general appearance of the
plants, this is ordered to be done by the European overseer after a
certain number of leaves have been produced. If the soil is poor,
perhaps only fourteen leaves will be allowed, while on the richest land
the plant can stand and properly ripen as many as twenty-four leaves.
The signs of ripening, which generally takes place in about three months
from the date of transplantation, are well kn