28 INTRODUCTION. 



an additional disadvantage. Owing to lateness and want of 

 robustness, the yield of the American varieties is far below that 

 of the coarse local kinds and this would be fatal to their 

 successful introduction. 



The chances of improving the quality of Indian tobacco 

 by the introduction of a new variety from America are therefore 

 not great. It will be necessary to build up, by hybridization, 

 new kinds of tobacco, suited to Indian conditions of growth, 

 which possess in addition the qualities necessary to obtain a 

 better price. Fortunately, the introduced American kinds, 

 althougli they lose their colour by the native method of curing, 

 nevertheless maintain their good texture and flavour, the chief 

 points in which the Indian tobaccos are deficient. Thus by 

 combining these desirable qualities with those of an indigenous 

 tobacco, which is robust and possesses a suitable habit of 

 growth, a very great improvement might be effected. Un- 

 fortunately, however, although tobacco is grown over so large 

 a portion of the world, very little work has been done on the 

 hybridization of this crop and little is known as to the 

 inheritance of the various characters which are of economic 

 importance. As in hybridization lies the greatest chance of 

 producing a permanent improvement in the tobacco grown in 

 the plains, and as it is possible to obtain at Pusa all the facilities 

 necessary' for such an enquiry, it was decided to take up the 

 question and to make a thorough investigation of inheritance in 

 this crop, beginning with those morphological characters which 

 are of economic importance, nameh% those concerning the 

 habit of the plant and the leaf. The subject has proved to be 

 far more complicated than was at first supposed, and the present 

 paper must be considered to be a preliminary one only. It will 

 pro})a})ly take some years to obtain a complete knowledge of the 

 subject. 



Besides its economic importance, there is another point 

 of great interest involved in the genetics of N. tabaciun. Most 

 of the characters are concerned witli the size of organs, and the 



