396 TOBACCO LEAF. 



the thinner the leaf the more cigars it will cover and 

 other qualities being equal the more it is worth. The 

 McKinley bill imposed a duty of $2 per pound on wrap- 

 pers "of which more than 100 are required to weigh a 

 pound." The length of time a cigar will hold its fire is 

 also important. Hence, the comparative capacity of 

 holding fire was ascertained by careful tests of each 

 crop ; the leaf which held fire the shortest time in each 

 of the four crops was called 100, and the table gives the 

 average of these determinations, the larger figures indi- 

 cating the longer capacity to hold fire ; the figures under 

 the heading "Cured" are the average of fire tests made 

 of the 1892-3-4 crops, when pole cured, or barn cured, 

 while under "Fer." are given average results of similar 

 tests of each of these crops after fermentation. After 

 each crop had "gone through the sweat," or fermenta- 

 tion, judgment as to the quality for wrappers of the 

 leaves from each plot was finally passed by practical 

 experts, the best crop each year being marked 1, the 

 second best 2, and so on, and this data is given in the 

 last three columns of the following table. For conven- 



Table VIII. QUALITY OF THE VARIOUS CROPS. 



Av., 1058 60 87 199 275 



*Pole cured ; leaves are lighter after going through the sweat. 

 The 1894 crop averaged per pound of pole-cured short wrappers 88 

 leaves, fermented 97 ; long wrappers 64 pole cured, 71 fermented. fThe 

 '95 crop is yet in sweat. 



