No. 4.] TOBACCO RAISING. 139 



THE LATEST RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS IN THE 

 CULTURE, CURE AND FERMENTA- 

 TION OF TOBACCO. 



BY DR. E. II. JENKINS. 



Raising wrapper-leaf tobacco is an old, established indus- 

 try in the Connecticut and Housatonic valleys. Partly be- 

 cause of this long practice and the general knowledge 

 which comes with it, farmers in this section are, as a rule, 

 more skilful in growing, curing and handling this particular 

 type of leaf than are the farmers in those places where 

 tobacco growino; is of more recent introduction. I am not 

 at all disturbed by the charge that we grow the leaf just as 

 our fathers grew it. That Ave follow our forebears' practice, 

 in its main lines, is one of the reasons why we make no 

 more failures than we do. The accumulated experience of a 

 generation is a safer thing to follow than the " Lo here," or 

 " Lo there," of some newly born enthusiast. 



It is also true that no soil and climate in the United 

 States is known which can produce a leaf more nearly neu- 

 tral in flavor or more nearly free from objectionable flavor 

 — and in this respect better fitted for a wrapper of highly 

 flavored Havana filler — than our New England climate and 

 our best tobacco soils. Still further, in no part of the world 

 has so much study been given to the fertilization and culture 

 of wrapper-leaf tobacco, and, as a consequence of this, no- 

 where, I think, is leaf raised which has, on the average, so 

 satisfactory a burning quality as the New England leaf. 

 That New England "Havana" and " broadleaf " sell, or 

 until quite recently have sold, at higher prices than any 

 other domestic wrappers, proves, I think, that the foregoing 

 claims for our leaf are well grounded. 



