232 TOBACCO LEAF. 



(see Page 216). Wagner declares that "if the leaf is 

 picked before it is ripe, it needs a process of subsequent 

 ripening to give it a good quality. This is impossible if 

 the leaf is separated from the stalk, but it takes place to 

 perfection under the American method" (the leaves 

 cured while still attached to the stalk) ; but if the leaf 

 process is used, the leaf would certainly not be picked 

 before it is ripe. German authorities maintain that the 

 weight of tobacco leaves cured on the stalk is 15 per 

 cent greater than that of leaves cured separate from the 

 stalk, due to the translocation of matter from stalk to 

 leaf during ripening after the harvest. Behrens, how- 

 ever, has shown that the current of solids is from leaf to 

 vein, thence to rib, and thence to stalk, and not the 

 reverse. Frear found nothing to indicate any marked 

 gain in weight as the result of slow ripening or curing 

 on the stalk. Eesults by Carpenter, in North Carolina, 

 on yellow leaf, point in the same direction. Nessler 

 long ago pointed out that the leaf cured on the 

 stalk, and separate from it, showed no appreciable differ- 

 ence in weight. At the Pennsylvania station, 1000 

 leaves cured on the stalk weighed, when stemmed, 116 

 ounces ; 1000 leaves harvested more nearly ripe, and 

 cured leaf by leaf, yielded 151 ounces of stemmed leaf, 

 the precise gain varying with the ripeness of the leaves. 

 It will be seen, therefore, that opinions are widely 

 divergent, among both practical tobacco growers and sci- 

 entists, concerning the good and bad points of the single 

 leaf system. Yet the fact that it is but little employed 

 in the seedleaf sections is no argument against it. Frear 

 found that the ripest of the stalk-cured leaves were 

 thinner than the less mature leaves harvested separately. 



