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Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 by Various
page 5 of 237 (02%)
uplands, on the other hand, is comparatively poor, but it is fertilized
annually with the droppings of the stables and pens. Patches of new
grounds are opened every year in the woods, the timber being cleared
away for the purpose of planting tobacco in the mould of the decayed
leaves, while many old fields are abandoned to pine and broom-straw or
turned into pastures for cattle.

The principal crops are tobacco, wheat, corn, and hay, but the first is
by far the most important, both from its quantity and its value.
Everything else is really subordinate to it. The soils of the uplands
and lowlands are adapted to very different varieties of this staple.
That which grows in the rich loam of the bottoms is known as "shipping
tobacco," because it is chiefly consumed abroad, as it bears
transportation in the rough state without injury to its quality.
"Working tobacco" is the name which is given to the variety that
flourishes on the hills; and this is used in the manufacture of brands
of chewing- and smoking-tobacco to meet the domestic as well as the
foreign demand. There is a third variety which grows in small quantities
on the plantation,--namely, "yellow tobacco," so called from the golden
color of the plant as it approaches ripeness; and this tint is not only
retained, but also heightened, when it has been cured, at which time it
is as light in weight as so much snuff. This variety is principally used
as a wrapper for bundles of the inferior kinds, and is prepared for the
market by a very tedious and expensive process; but the trouble thus
entailed and the money spent have their compensation in the very high
prices which it always brings in the market.

The fields where tobacco has been cultivated during the previous summer
are sown in wheat in the autumn, unless they are new grounds, when the
rotation of crops is tobacco for two years in succession, followed in
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