American government. He, however, further points out that it is a well-established truth, deduced from the universal experience of the cultivation of seed-leaf tobacco in every State, that a crop cannot be cured without the alternations of moist and dry atmospheres. A few words may be said on the curing of tobacco generally. Three systems are adopted in the United States. It may be (1) air-dried; (2) dried by open-fire heat from charcoal or wood fires in the barn; or (3) by flues which convey heat from ovens and heaters built outside the barn. The last method is said to be the best, as a better control can be had over the temperature. No regular rule can be given, as the heat must be regulated according to circumstances, and must change with the weather. The main thing is to dry the tobacco gradually to secure a good colour, and to prevent mould. When the tobacco is dry, it must be kept so by gentle fires in wet or damp weather, and it is not touched for the purpose of ‘bulking’ until it has become soft and pliable. Artificial sweating is believed by some to be accompanied with less risk than sweating by the natural process; and second stories of warehouses are sometimes prepared as sweating chambers by being closely ceiled or plastered. These are heated by furnaces, and the temperature maintained at from one hundred and ten to one hundred and forty degrees. After curing, the tobacco is prepared for market. This consists of stripping the leaves from the stalks, tying them up in large bundles, and afterwards sorting them. After being sorted in ‘grades,’ these are tied up in ‘hands’ of from eighteen to twenty leaves, securely wrapped with a leaf at the butt-end, and ‘bulked’ in piles, with the heads out and the tails overlapping in the centre of the bulk. Here it remains until the ‘fatty stems’ are thoroughly cured, when it is sold to the dealers. These latter pack it in barrels and sweat the leaves still further; but into this subject we need not go, as it can have but little interest to the farmer who intends growing tobacco in this country. So far as the cost of growing tobacco is concerned, a large and successful grower in Pennsylvania, some two years ago, published the following statement of cost and returns from a field of nine and a half acres: 215¾ days’ labour of men from preparing the seed-bed up to the hanging in the barn, £43; team-work, 38½ days, with feed for 42½ days, £30; curing, stripping, and marketing, £15: total, £88. The net receipts were £174; thus showing a profit of £86. This was in a fairly good year. These few notes show us that tobacco is a crop requiring a great expenditure of labour and care, and that even in America the profits of thirty pounds per acre, about which we have heard so much, are not always realised. The probabilities, however, are so much against our getting really fine qualities of tobacco, that it is doubtful if the necessary capital will be put into the business. ‘WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS.’