128 DEPAKTMENTAL KEPORTS. 



it therefore seems advisable, if the full value of the soil survey is to 

 be realized, to organize a division of soil technology to work out the 

 suggestions and demonstrate the efficiency of new methods or the 

 feasibility of introducing new crops, as has been done so successfully 

 in the case of the tobacco work. 



I am not ready to make a specific recommendation at this time, as 

 it is difficult to find trained men for this work in this country, and the 

 success of such an organization would depend largely upon the per- 

 sonnel of the force. It would seem that some of our agricultural col- 

 leges should turn out such men, but they apparently have not done 

 so. There are practical men who could carry on such work under 

 direction of our scientists, but they are usually so successful as man- 

 agers of estates that they can not be induced to accept a place for the 

 salaries allowed by Congress in this Department. It seems to be 

 necessary, in this as in other lines, to train the men ourselves. 



TOBACCO INVESTIGATIONS. 



In my last report I called attention to the success of the exhibit of 

 American-grown leaf tobacco at the Paris Exposition and the number 

 of awards given. After the installation of the exhibit and the work 

 of the jury of awards had been completed, Mr. Floj^d, the tobacco 

 expert of the Division, spent some time, under orders from the Secre- 

 tary, visiting the foreign markets, particularly in Paris, Bremen, 

 Amsterdam, and London, where large quantities of our domestic 

 tobaccos are sold or where we ourselves purchase leaf for our own use. 

 The information gathered in this way of the character of the tobacco 

 from all over the world with which we have to compete in our foreign 

 trade, of the requirements of those markets, and of the methods of 

 selling under the Regie system prevailing in certain of the European 

 countries, promises to be of great value in the investigations which it 

 is planned soon to take up of the export types from Virginia, North 

 Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 



Upon his return to this country, Mr. Floyd took active steps to start 

 some investigations on the improvement of the Pennsylvania leaf, 

 with the object of seeing what could be done with it, and the further 

 object of introducing a more desirable filler leaf, if such a step seemed 

 necessary for the building up of the trade in Pennsylvania tobacco. 

 A soil survey had been made of the principal tobacco districts of Lan- 

 caster County, as a basis for the possible introduction of new varie- 

 ties. In the preliminary work of manipulating the present style of 

 leaf grown in Lancaster County, a different method of fermentation 

 was tried, in which the tobacco is fermented in bulk, according to the 

 practice in Cuba and Florida, which had been successfully used on 

 the Connecticut leaf the year before. Fermentation by this process 

 is completed within forty or fifty days, under the constant super- 

 vision of an attendant, who turns the bulk from time to time, and it 

 is thus possible to watch the progress of the fermentation and modify 

 the conditions if circumstances seem to require it. This is a decided 

 gain in point of time, and is much less expensive than the old method 

 of case fermentation, where the tobacco was set aside for from six to 

 nine months in a tightly packed case, in which it was chance whether 

 the tobacco would ferment properly and whether it would escape 

 injury by black rot. The first experiment made was on an old crop 

 which had not fermented by ihe usual case method, but which had 

 developed a considerable amount of black rot. Bulk fermentation 



