18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



WHAT THE EXPERIMENT STATIONS HAVE LEARNED 

 ABOUT RAISING AND CURING TOBACCO. 



BY DR. E. H. JENKINS, NEW HAVEN, CONN. 



It would be hard to say just what the stations — entirely 

 apart from experienced tobacco growers — had learned about 

 raising and curing the weed. It would be quite as hard to 

 say what experienced tobacco growers, without any hint or 

 help from the station, had learned about these same things 

 within the last ten years. And the reason why it is diffi- 

 cult to say just what each has separately done is, because 

 our stations and our growers have all the while worked 

 together. In Connecticut, at least, no other class of farm- 

 ers calls on the station so constantly for its help as the 

 tobacco growers. This is as it should be. The tobacco 

 grower meets very strong competition, and knows that the 

 only safe way to meet it is by superior quality of leaf. 

 And he knows that in some ways the chemist, the botanist 

 and the experimenter can help him. The station man cer- 

 tainly knows that he cannot experiment on growing tobacco 

 without the constant help of an experienced practical grower. 

 We all are, or should be, workers together for the same end. 



But what we want now are the facts about tobacco, no 

 matter who first got hold of them. " Spot" knowledge is 

 what we are after. 



Of course, we are now talking wholly of wrapper leaf, 

 such as is raised almost exclusively in Massachusetts and 

 Connecticut. 



In the first place, then, we have learned that the fineness 

 or texture of the soil largely fixes the color, and, to some 

 degree, the texture of the leaf. That is, light cinnamon- 

 brown leaf, as a rule, can only be raised on sandy, light 

 lands, which are nearly free from loam or clay. No known 



