situations, so that if one should fail, another may succeed; and an experienced planter commonly takes care to have ten times as many plants, as he can make use of.

    In these beds, along with the tobacco, they generally sow kale,
    colewort, and cabbage seed, &c., at the same time.

There are seven different kinds of tobacco, particularly adapted to the different qualities of the soil on which they are cultivated, and each varying from the other.  They are named Hudson, Frederick, Thick-joint, Shoe-string, Thickset, Sweet-scented, and Oronoko.  But although these are the principal, yet there are a great many different species besides, with names peculiar to the situations, settlements and neighbourhoods wherein they are produced; which it would be too tedious here to specify and particularise.  The soil for tobacco must be rich and strong; the ground is prepared in the following manner:—­after being well broke up and by repeated working, either with the plough or hand hoes, rendered soft, light, and mellow, the whole field is made into hills, each to take up the space of three feet, and flattened at the top.

In the first rains, which are here called seasons, after the vernal equinox, the tobacco plants are carefully drawn while the ground is soft; carried to the field where they are to be planted, and one dropped upon every hill, which is done by the negro children.  The most skilful slaves then begin planting them, by making a hole with their finger in each hill, inserting the plant with the taproot carefully placed straight down, and pressing the earth on each side of it.  This is continued as long as the ground is wet enough to enable the plants sufficiently grown to draw and set; and it requires several different seasons, or periods of rain, to enable them to complete planting their crop, which operation is frequently not finished until July.

After the plants have taken root, and begin to grow, the ground is carefully weeded and worked, either with hand hoes or the plough, according as it will admit.  After the plants have considerably increased in bulk, and begin to shoot up, the tops are pinched off, and only ten, twelve, or sixteen leaves left, according to the quality of the tobacco and the soil.  The worms, also, are carefully picked off and destroyed, of which there are two species that prey upon tobacco.  One is the ground worm, which cuts it off just beneath the surface of the earth; this must be carefully looked for and trodden to death; it is of a dark brown color, and short.  The other is a horn worm, some inches in length, as thick as your little finger, of a vivid green color, with a number of pointed excrescences or feelers from his head like horns.  These devour the leaf, and are always upon the plant.  As it would be endless labor to keep their hands constantly in search of them, it would be almost impossible to prevent their eating up more than half the crop