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Page 4
The hands are as busy in winter as during any other part of the year.
Much of their time is then taken up in manipulating the tobacco, which
has been stored away in one large barn, and preparing it for market, the
first step toward which is to strip the leaves from the stalk and then
carefully separate those of an inferior from those of a superior
quality. Although there are many grades, the negroes are able to
distinguish them at a glance and assort them accordingly. They are not
engaged in this work of selection continuously from day to day, but at
intervals, for they can handle the tobacco only when the weather is damp
enough to moisten the leaf, otherwise it is so brittle that it would
crack and fall to pieces under their touch. They like this work, for the
barn is kept very comfortable by large stoves, they do not have to move
from their seats, and they can all sit very sociably together, talking,
laughing, and singing. It contrasts very agreeably with other work which
they are called upon to do at this season,--namely, the grubbing of new
grounds, from which they shrink with unconcealed repugnance, for outside
of a mine there is no kind of labor more arduous or exacting. The land
cleared is that from which the original forest has been cut, leaving
stumps thickly scattered over the surface, from which a heavy
scrub-growth springs up. Active, quick, and industrious as the negroes
may be in the tobacco-, corn-, or wheat fields, they show here great
indolence, and move forward very slowly with their hoes, axes, and
picks, piling up, as they advance, masses of roots, saplings, stumps,
and brush, which, when dry, are set on fire and consumed. The soil
exposed is a rich but thin loam of decayed leaves, in which tobacco
grows with luxuriance.
In February or March the laborers prepare the plant-patch, the initial
step in the production of a crop that remains on their hands at least
twelve months before it is ready for market. They select a spot in the
depths of the woods where the soil is very fertile from the accumulated
mould, and they then cut away the trees and underbrush until a clean
open surface, square in shape and about forty yards from angle to angle,
is left, surrounded on all sides by the forest. Having piled up great
masses of logs over the whole of this surface, they set them on fire at
one end of the patch, and these are allowed to burn until all have been
consumed, the object being to get the ash which is deposited, and which
is very rich in certain constituents of the tobacco-plant and is
especially conducive to its growth. The ploughmen then come and break up
the ground, hoers carefully pulverize every clod, and the seed is sown,
a mere handful being sufficient for a great extent of soil. The laborers
afterward cover the surface of the patch with bushes, and it is left
without further protection. In a short time the tobacco-plant springs up
in indescribable profusion, and in a few weeks it is in a condition to
be transferred to the fields.
Before this is done, however, the seed-corn has begun to sprout in the
ground. The first cry of the whippoorwill is the signal for planting
this cereal. The grains are dropped from the hand at regular intervals,
both men and women joining in this work; and they all move slowly along
together, the men bearing the corn in small bags, the women holding it
in their aprons. The wide low-grounds at this season expand to the
horizon without anything to obstruct the vision, a clear, unbroken sweep
of purple ploughed land. The laborers are visible far off, those who
drop the grains walking in a line ahead, the hoers following close
behind to cover up the seed. Still farther in the rear come the harrows,
that level all inequalities in the surface and crush the clods. Flocks
of crows wheel in the air above the scene, or stalk at a safe distance
on the ploughed ground. Blackbirds, which have now returned from the
South, sing in chorus on the adjacent ditch-banks, mingling their harsh
notes with the lively songs of myriads of bobolinks, while high overhead
whistles the plover. The newly-sprung grass paints the road-side a lush
green, the leaves are budding on weed and spray, and over all there hang
the exhilarating influences of spring.
As soon as the hands have planted the corn, they begin transplanting the
tobacco, which they find a more tedious task, for they can only
transfer the slips to the fields when the air is surcharged with
moisture and the ground is wet; otherwise the slips will wither on the
way or perish in the hill without taking root. But if the weather is
favorable they flourish from the hour they are thrust into the ground.
It takes the laborers but a short time to plant many acres; and when
their work is done the fields look as bare as before. The original
leaves soon die, but from the healthy stalk new ones shoot out and
expand very rapidly. The soil has been very highly fertilized with guano
and very carefully ploughed, so that every condition is favorable to the
growth of the plant if there is an abundance of rain. At a later period
it passes through a drought very well, being a hardy plant that recovers
even after it has wilted; but very frequently in its early stages the
laborers are compelled to haul water in casks from the streams to save
it from destruction.
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