54 
have a fine odor at the ordinary temperature have but a poor aroma 
when smoked, since the aromatic substances may be disguised by the 
products of dry distillation of fat and protein when the cigar is smoked. 
A high fat content is indeed very injurious. Other compounds also, 
interfering seriously with the aroma, appear sometimes to be produced 
_ under certain climatic conditions. For example, the tobacco produced 
in Connecticut in the unusually wet season of 1897 was so inferior 
that the sales did not pay the outlay for fertilizers.' The buyers 
claimed that the cured tobacco had a *‘ stink” about it and that it also 
showed a similar odor after sweating. Such injurious products seem 
not infrequently to be present. It is on this account that tobacco is 
subjected in certain factories to a strong current of air for twenty-four 
hours at the ordinary temperature, in order to take out the “rank” 
odor before it goes to the bench for cigar making. Indeed the air 
which has passed through such tobacco contains a very sharp substance 
which brings tears to the eyes. 
The influence of climate upon the formation of certain products in 
the tobacco plant may also be inferred from an observation made by 
Schimmel. While 43 kilograms of tobacco from South America yielded 
on distillation with water mere traces of a volatile oil, 15 kilograms of 
German tobacco yielded 6 grams of a thick and dark-colored oil having 
an odor similar to that of camomile. This oil contained, according to 
Thoms, no terpens, but it contained among other things a small amount 
ofa phenol. A further injury to the aroma is to be expected from the 
treatment of the tobacco in the field with paris green and other arse- 
nious preparations to destroy caterpillars. -Many tobacco growers 
avoid the use of such preparations altogether and do not begrudge the 
extra expense for the labor required in picking off the caterpillars by 
hand. Others apply Paris green only in the young stages of the plant— 
1 part well mixed with 100 parts of flour—but in certain districts, 
where caterpillars occasionally become very numerous, Paris green is 
applied on the ripening leaves in proportions of about one-fourth of a 
pound to 40 gallons of water. In one pound of sweated tobacco from 
such fields M. Peter found from a trace to 1.7 grains arsenious acid! 
Such tobacco when smoked may be expected to have a disagreeable 
odor, since even the smallest quantity of arsenious acid produces, in 
contact with a glowing substance, a disagreeable odor resembling that 
of garlic. But more serious than the injury to the aroma is the injury 
to health when such poisoned tobacco is habitually smoked. An injury 
to the odor of tobacco may also be caused by the development of certain 
fungi on cigars kept in a too moist atmosphere. Even a putrid odor 
may thus be produced, as Splendore has observed in one case.? 
'On the other hand too dry seasons are just as injurions, since the tobaceo pro- 
duced may refuse to sweat. 
?This weuld correspond to 0.025 per cent arsenious acid or about 0.05 per cent 
paris green. 
511 tobacco, p. 11, 1899. 
