Also 8 succour. [f. prec.]
† 1. trans. To fit or provide with a sucker or valve. Obs. rare–1.
1660. R. D’Acres, Elem. Water-drawing, iv. 33. The water will not follow after, though you suck never so strongly, and sucker it never so closely.
2. To remove superfluous young shoots from (tobacco or maize plants); † also, to remove (the shoots).
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Glouc. (1662), 349. Many got great estates thereby, notwithstanding the great care and cost in … suckering, topping,… making and rowling it [sc. tobacco].
1705. R. Beverley, Virginia, II. § 20 (1722), 128. I am inform’d they [sc. Indians] used to let it all run to Seed, only succouring the Leaves, to keep the Sprouts from growing upon, and starving them.
1779. Ann. Reg., 107/1. Care must be taken to nip off the sprouts that will be continually springing up at the junction of the leaves with the stalks. This is termed ‘suckering the tobacco.’
1817–8. Cobbett, Resid. U. S. (1822), 94. Fifteen acres of good Indian corn, well planted, well suckered, and well tilled in all respects.
1908. Mary Johnston, Lewis Rand, xiv. 162. I’ve wanted wealth and I’ve wanted power ever since I went barefoot and suckered tobacco.
3. intr. To throw up suckers. Also occas. pass., to be thrown up as a sucker.
1802. Trans. Soc. Arts, XX. 369. When those [plants] I have now planted begin to sucker.
1894. Times, 21 Feb., 4/3. It was found in the botanic nursery that plants of Sisal hemp (Agave rigida) suckered in fourteen months.
1894. Blackmore, Perlycross, 256. As straight as a hazel wand sucker’d from the root.
Hence Suckering vbl. sb. in sense 2 (also attrib.).
1817–8. Cobbett, Resid. U. S. (1822), 138. Where would the hands come from to do the marking; the dropping and covering of the Corn;… the suckering when that work is done, as it always ought to be?
1877. Aug. Morris, Tobacco, 44. In suckering, the work is done with both hands, commencing at the top of the plant.
1881. Encycl. Brit., XII. 235/1. The soil should be carefully opened and the shoots removed with a suckering iron.
