igoo-i.] Effects of Water on Foliage Leaves. 32 1 



extent during its growth ; and the leaves are of a thicker and more 

 gummy nature, and are less valuable as a cigar wrapper. If these 

 statements just repeated regarding the cause of the spotting of the 

 Sumatra leaf be true, then it opens up the way to produce it artificially, 

 and that too at little expense. It is well known that ordinary wood 

 ashes contain a high percentage of caustic alkalies, especially caustic 

 potash and caustic soda (if water be added), and that these substances 

 do affect the leaves of plants, causing them to resemble, in outward 

 appearance at least, the leaf grown upon the newly cleared ground 

 in Sumatra. 



The Sumatra tobacco when planted early in the year is generally 

 without spots, but when planted late it spots freely. It is grown in 

 Florida quite extensively and becomes spotted similar to the real 

 Sumatra leaf, and in texture and general appearance resembles it 

 closely. It is also cultivated in Cuba. 



This tobacco, whether grown in the East Indies, Florida or Cuba, 

 has another rather desirable quality, namely, that of a good " burn." 

 This quality is especially wished for in the wrapper of a cigar. When 

 once ignited it burns away quite steadily without producing flame, and 

 more rapidly than the ordinary tobacco leaf which is used for filling 

 purposes. This can be proved experimentally by placing two or more 

 leaves in similar positions, then by igniting them and comparing the 

 areas burned in a given time. When compared with the bright 

 Virginia wrapper, the writer found that there was little or no difference 

 between them, when the average was taken of a large number of cases. 

 The Virginia leaf was not spotted, but was a thin bright yellow leaf 

 containing apparently very little of this gummy substance generally 

 found in the darker coloured leaves used for filling the body of 

 the cigar. 



This quality of burning steadily and rapidly is a desirable one in a 

 cigar wrapper for reasons which the smoker readily understands, and 

 which we need not enter upon here ; and it follows that any 

 investigation which results in developing this quality in a plant 

 naturally, or in producing it in a leaf artificially, would be important 

 both from a scientific and from an economic standpoint. The spotted 

 leaf has this quality to a very high degree, and all very thin well-cured 

 leaves possess it also to a considerable extent. 



It was shown by Nessler in 1867 that when different kinds of paper. 



