CLASSIFICATION AND MARKETS. 75 



sweetness and strength. For that reason, filler leaf is 

 selected for a character in itself, as sweetness, strength 

 and perhaps catchy taste. A filler leaf may be most de- 

 sirable, but wrapped with an undesirable wrapper or 

 binder, its desirable quality may be detracted from and 

 its chief value rendered worthless. On the other hand, 

 the filler leaf may be "flat," and the wrapper or binder, 

 or both, may give to the cigar nearly its entire value. 



The gum in cigar leaf is what produces much of its 

 value in smoking. The taste, strength, texture, etc., 

 are all more or less dependent on the amount of gum 

 present. Sometimes a crop has too much gum ; this was 

 especially true of the '93 and '94 crops of all sections 

 of the country. The leaf raised in the section around 

 East Hartford, Ct., should be kept two years for proper 

 curing, as it contains an unusually large per cent of gum. 



To make cigars of the great variety of requirements 

 called for by the trade, involves much skill and expe- 

 rience in selecting and putting together the grades of 

 leaf necessary to accomplish any desired result. The 

 judgment, or ability, to do this commands a high pre- 

 mium in American cigar factories. It can only be 

 learned by close observation and wide experience. It 

 cannot be described in a book. To still further compli- 

 cate the matter, crops from the same region may vary 

 greatly in quality from year to year. It is customary to 

 refer to the Connecticut seedleaf crop grown in 1871 as 

 the type of absolute perfection, while the Havana seed 

 crop of 1892 was in many sections of remarkable quality 

 when it came out of the sweat. The curing, and the 

 subsequent fermentation, of the leaf, also profoundly 

 affect its quality. The best the grower can do is to fol- 

 low the matter closely from year to year, and strive for 

 those qualities in his leaf which are in most demand 

 and he must" follow the demand closely to see just what 

 it is. 



