102 TOBACCO LEAF. 



soluble substances. Butyric acid is present as one of the 

 products of the sweat. 



The investigations of Cohn and others haye shown 

 that the flavors of butter are largely due to the prod- 

 ucts formed by special ferments active in ripening the 

 cream. Pure cultures of one ferment produced nau- 

 seous butter ; of another, a butter with all the delight- 

 ful aroma and flavor of the finest gi*ass butter. Selected 

 cultures of the latter bacterium are now on sale to the 

 dairymen of America. 



SPECIAL CULTURES FOR SPECIAL FLAVORS IN THE LEAF. 



It has recently been queried whether tobacco, 

 which was known not to attain its finest flavor and 

 aromatic smoking qualities until after the sweat, might 

 not, in the finer varieties, such as the better Cuban 

 brands, as contrasted with less excellent kinds, owe its 

 excellence in the former cases to the favoring influence 

 of some special bacterial ferments. 



It has long been a matter of comment among the 

 more expert buyers and manufacturers, that cases, in the 

 center of which "black rot" had developed sufficiently 

 to injure the leaves immediately surrounding, yielded 

 tobacco of a finer flavor, more nearly approaching the 

 Cuban, than was obtained from other cases of the same 

 lot that escaped the black rot. 



Emil Suchsland,* several years since, published a 

 most suggestive paper upon this subject, from which I 

 largely quote : "In connection with bacteriological in- 

 vestigations as to the influence of certain physical con- 

 ditions upon bacterial development, made by me under 

 the direction of Professor Zopf, I have, for a long 

 time, been studying the nature of the tobacco-sweating 

 process. This process is, it is well known, of the high- 



*Berichte der deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft, 9 (1891), pp. 

 79-81. 



