62 MISCELLANEOUS PAPEKS. 



portional to the amount of nicotine present. Indeed, even the 

 " strength '' of manufactured tobacco — using this term in the sense 

 understood by the trade — is not dependent upon the nicotine content. 

 It seems only reasonable, however, to suppose that tobacco entirely 

 free from nicotine would no longer j)rove satisfying to the consumer 

 any more than would whisky deprived of all its alcohol. 



Numerous attempts have been made to devise a process for the 

 partial removal of the nicotine from tobacco, either before or after 

 it is manufactured, by appropriate treatment, and many patents have 

 been issued for jirocesses intended to accomplish this result, but none 

 of the 25roposed methods has as yet proved sufficiently practicable 

 to come into general use, and this is not surprising when it is re- 

 membered that -the flavor and aroma of tobacco are comparable in 

 delicac}^ to those of tea and coffee and that consequently even the 

 mildes-t treatment for the removal of the alkaloid is almost certain 

 to result in injury to these qualities. 



There can be no doubt that there would be a genuine demand 

 for tobacco containing only a verj^ small percentage of nicotine but 

 retaining the other attributes of the best grades of the crop as now 

 j)roduced, especially in the case of the cigar-filler types. The most 

 rational method of attaining this end would seem to lie in the sys- 

 tematic breeding of types characterized by their low nicotine content, 

 and at the same time avoiding those soils, fertilizers, and cultural 

 methods which tend to the excessive production of the nitrogenous 

 constituents of the plant. Extensive experiments have been under- 

 taken in connection with the Tobacco Breeding Investigations of the 

 Bureau of Plant Industr}^ with the object of securing types of 

 tobacco of this kind, and the results already obtained tend to show 

 that the variation in nicotine content of individual selections from 

 various tj^pes is fully as great as that of such physical characteristics 

 as shape, size, and nmnber of leaves. Since nothing like sufficient 

 data are available for establishing any constant relation between the 

 l^hysicfil characteristics of different tobacco plants and their nicotine 

 content, these experiments necessitate the accurate determination by 

 analysis of the quantity of the latter in a very large nmnber of 

 selected plants. 



THE QUANTITATIVE DETERMINATION OF NICOTINE IN TOBACCO. 



In order to conduct these experiments on a sufficiently comprehen- 

 sive scale it is imperative that there be available a method for the 

 estimation of nicotine which is reasonably accurate and is at the same 

 time rapid, so that a large number of determinations may be com- 

 pleted in a day's work. Kissling" has developed a method which 



oZeitschr. Analyt. Cliem., XXII, 199. 

 102 — VII 



