known but the exact nature of the changes that 
take place during the process were not under- 
stood. Since the discoveries of Louis Pasteur 
regarding the part played by bacteria in gen- 
eral fermentative processes it has been generally 
claimed by bacteriologists that the changes 
wrought in the leaf and the production of flavor 
are solely the work of bacteria. Although this 
view has not been proved it has never been 
fully disproved, and there appears to be no 
doubt that the microbes known to exist in the 
leaf during the fermentation process play an 
important part in the process. Fermentation 
can only take place as stated under suitable 
conditions of heat and moisture and these are 
the conditions which favor the development of 
microbes and enable them to work. The results 
obtained are probably partially due to chemical 
action and partly to bacterial action, the two 
being complementary to each other. 
In 1899 Suchsland, a German scientist, 
startled the tobacco world by asserting that 
the flavor of tobacco was in no way due to the 
effects of the soil and climate where it was 
grown, but was solely due to microbic action, 
and that the specific flavor and aroma of any 
given tobacco could be artificially produced by 
the cultivation of selected bacteria and allowing 
the tobacco to cure and ferment under their ac- 
81 
