No. 4.] TOBACCO RAISING. 153 



fairly satisfactory shape. In substance, this method con- 

 sists in packing the leaf in cases in the usual way, and put- 

 ting them in a room which is kept very warm and very 

 damp. There is little agreement as to the proper tempera- 

 ture, some keeping it at 90° or 95° F., others keeping 

 it as high as 130°. This method seems to hold the light 

 colors of the goods, it gives the leaf the look of sweated 

 tobacco, and damage in the case is not common. The 

 tobacco has a peculiar, sweetish smell, however, which 

 gradually disappears on aging; and it is not, in the opinion 

 of dealers, so good an article as the same leaf which has 

 been fermented by the old process, which is often called the 

 " natural sweat." 



Three years ago I fermented our experimental crop by 

 still another method, which is used in Cuba, Florida, Ger- 

 many and Sumatra, but which had not been used commonly, 

 if at all, with our New England wrapper leaf. To distin- 

 guish it from the others it may be called fermentation in 

 bulk, though it is as ' ' natural " and as little ' ' forced " as 

 the old standard method. The test was so successful that 

 we have sweated our crops of the last two years in bulk, and 

 our 1901 crop of Sumatra will be put in bulk in a few days. 

 This method is, I believe, destined to largely supersede the 

 others, for reasons which I will presently give. 



What is the fermentation, the "natural sweat" of to- 

 bacco? So far as we know at present, it is this : Cured to- 

 bacco leaves normally contain two or more ferments, — 

 chemical agents which, though present in very small amount, 

 can excite extensive chemical change in the leaf, just as a 

 very little rennet can curdle a large amount of milk, or as 

 malt can turn many hundred times its weight of starch into 

 sugar. It is these chemical substances in tobacco which 

 carry on the fermentation, and not at all the bacteria, to 

 whose action the whole thing was formerly ascribed. 



Now, these ferments in the cold, or in the dry, leaf will 

 not act at all. Tobacco must be "in case," containing 25 

 to 30 per cent of water, and must be warm, before any true 

 fermentation can begin. Once begun, the heat rises rapidly, 

 for certain matters in the leaf, through the agency of the 



