No. 4.] TOBACCO GROWING. 39 



weather. I have seen small kerosene stoves do excellent 

 service, but your factory at Florence could make, if there 

 were a demand for it, a cheap kerosene lamp, without glass, 

 to burn twelve hours, and which would not flare or go out 

 in any moderate wind. 



In general, I may say that the plan which we have fol- 

 lowed cures the leaf in much less time than the usual method, 

 absolutely protects it from pole-burn or stem rot, and that the 

 leaf so cured cannot be distinguished from the leaf perfectly 

 cured by the ordinary process. 



We shall continue our work on this line, I hope, till we 

 have found the best way of applying heat to tobacco in 

 barns built as is usual in the Connecticut valley. 



These are some of the things which we, farmers and sta- 

 tion men, have worked out together. They are things 

 which we know as the result of experience and observation. 

 It would take longer to tell of the things we don't know. It 

 seems to me that one of our greatest deficiencies is our igno- 

 rance regarding the sweating or fermenting of the leaf. We 

 do not know what special organisms cause it, what changes 

 it makes in the substance of the leaf, nor how to regulate it 

 in any way. 



Our system consists in nailing the tobacco up in cases, 

 letting them stand over one summer, moving them once, 

 perhaps, during the time, and then taking the tobacco out, 

 sometimes well sweated, sometimes poorly sweated ; some- 

 times rotted, or musty, or mouldy, or with "canker." 



Can't we do better than this? One of the objects for 

 which oar Tobacco Experiment Company was organized, six 

 years ago, was to study this matter. We have begun on it, 

 with the advice and help of practical tobacco packers. Other 

 stations, I believe, purpose to take it up, and the United 

 States Department of Agriculture is asking Congress for a 

 special appropriation, to be used in studying methods of 

 fermenting tobacco at home and abroad. All this is in the 

 right direction. 



The quality of the leaf is determined in the end by the 

 nature of the fermentation. We must know what this fer- 

 mentation is, what it does to the leaf and how to regulate 

 it. If it is the work of microbes, and I have no doubt that 



