d in some
neighboring valleys, many tobacco growers have been engaged for the
last ten or twelve years. Mr. Culp, who was a tobacco grower, and, if I
understood him rightly, also a manufacturer in New York for some years
before he came here, and who appears, at any rate, to be a very thorough
farmer and a lover of clean fields, has planted tobacco here for fifteen
years. He has a farm of about seven hundred acres, four hundred of
which have this year been in tobacco. From him and others I learned the
following particulars of the way in which they cultivate the plant in
California.

They sow the seed from the 1st to the 10th of January, and sometimes even
in December. The beds are prepared and sown as in the East, except that
they do not always burn the ground over, which, if I remember rightly,
is invariably done in Missouri and Kentucky. In this season, the days are
always warm enough for the little plants; but there are light frosts at
night, and they are protected against these by frames covered with thin
cotton cloth.

The fields are plowed--by the best growers--ten inches deep; cross-plowed
and harrowed until the soil is fine, and then ridged--that is to say, two
furrows are thrown together. This saves the plants from harm by a heavy
rain, and also makes the ground warmer, and is found to start the plants
more quickly.

Planting in the fields begins about the 8th of April; and the plants are
set a foot apart in the rows, the rows being three feet apart, if they are
from Havana seed; if Connecticut or Florida, they stand eighteen inches or
two feet apart in the rows.

They had grown, besides Havana and Florida, for their crop, Latakia,
Hungarian, Mexican, Virginia, Connecticut-seed Standard, Burleigh, White
Leaf, and some other kinds, by way of experiment.

Cultivators and shovel-plows are used to keep the soil loose and clean;
if the weather should prove damp and cold, the shovel-plow is used to make
the ridges somewhat higher. They go over the fields twice in the season
with these tools, using the hoe freely where weeds get into the rows. Last
year, in twenty-six days after they were done planting, they had gathered
two bales of tobacco. This, however, is not common, and was done by very
close management, and on a warm soil.

All the tobacco growers with whom I spoke assert that they are not
troubled with that hideous creature, "the worm." They attribute this in
part to the excellence of their soil, and par