48 
a short time the temperature reached 59°, but since even 60° is fre- 
quently observed in the fermenting tobacco piles this temperature 
should not be expected to kill the supposed tobacco bacteria. The 
microscopical examination of the leaves after five days proved the 
absence of a bacterial coating: Only here and there a microbe was 
found, but upon staining and counting in everything which had any 
resemblance to a spore or bacillus there were not more than 600 
microbes to the square inch. The examination was made not only of 
scrapings of the moistened surface, but of the triturated parts of the 
leaf itself. 
Recently a treatise by H. Vernhout has appeared in which a microbe 
closely related to Bacillus subtilis is described from fermenting tobacco 
leaves in Java.! The author ascribes to this the phenomena of tobacco 
fermentation. The proof, however, that this microbe can produce fer- 
mentation and can multiply on tobacco leaves with only 25 per cent 
water has not been adduced. His further remark that a sample of cured 
tobacco did not contain any oxidase or peroxidase does not require any 
further comment, since these enzyms may disappear as above mentioned 
under unfavorable conditions, while catalase, the third oxidizing enzym, 
still may persist. 
SWEATING MUSTY TOBACCO. 
The complaints about ‘‘musty tobacco,” ‘white mold,” and ‘ black 
rot” in tobacco packed in cases are quite frequent. Moist weather 
toward the end of the curing, and especially while stripping and pack- 
ing are going on, favors these injuries. Apparently quite healthy 
tobacco will often, after having passed through the natural or cold 
sweat, have a moldy odor? or a cover of a white film of fungus 
mycelium, or even patches where the leaves are transformed into a 
powder by the so-called black rot.’ Dark heavy tobacco is said to be 
most damaged by ‘white mold.” Because of this damage the value 
of the tobacco is decreased to about one-sixth of the original. A 
tobacco manufacturer assured the writer that out of 1,600 cases of 
tobacco of a particular crop he found 1,300 cases more or less 
damaged in this way, and he estimated the damage annually caused 
in this country at about $1,000,000. Repacking after removing the 
worst portions affords but a poor help and but for a short time. 
In the case of black rot further serious damage can be prevented 
more easily by repacking, since this fungus does not continue to 
spread after cold weather sets in in autumn. The chief remedy 
'Onderzoek over Bakterien bij de Fermentatie der Tabak, Batavia, 1899. 
The moldy odor is caused by the growth of the common mold fungus, Penicillium 
glaucum. 
°In a case of black rot examined by Mr. E. A. Bessey, in which the cohesion of the 
parts of the leaf was destroyed and patches of it transformed into a pulverulent 
mass, the fungus Sterigmatocystis nigra (Aspergillus niger) was found. 
