246 ALCOHOL, VINEGAR, SAUER KRAUT, TOBACCO, SILAGE, FLAX 
improved by the use of artificial pure cultures in the fermentation 
is a natural one. The acknowledged relations of bacteria to the 
flavors of butter, cheese, and other products naturally suggest 
an attempt to improve the flavors of tobacco by bacterial in- 
oculation. Several experimenters have been trying this plan for 
years, with what success it is hardly possible tosay. ‘The manifest 
financial importance of such a process, could it be made successful, 
has inclined experimenters to keep their work secret. While it 
has several times been claimed that by the use of proper bacterial 
cultures Havana flavors can be obtained in tobacco fermented 
elsewhere, these claims have not yet been substantiated by any 
public demonstration. They are still made by some who insist 
that they have actually been successful in this line of experi- 
menting and that they have made Havana flavors from common 
tobacco by bacterial inoculations. 
Diseases of Tobacco.—Whether or not microérganisms play 
a part in the normal ripening, it is certain that they sometimes 
injure the crop and produce abnormal fermentation. The 
presence of too much moisture on the leaves is likely to be followed 
by the growth of mischievous microérganisms. Molds are the 
most common injurious organisms to appear under these condi- 
tions, but bacteria may also develop and produce disastrous 
results. From the time the tobacco begins to grow in the field 
until it has reached its final state as a completed product, it is 
subject to a considerable number of diseases. Itis a very dclicate 
plant, and slight changes in moisture or temperature are almost 
sure to bring about troubles of some kind that injure or ruin the 
crop. Of these troubles some are produced by molds or special 
fungi, and some by bacteria. The consideration of these various 
troubles, whether bacterial or of a different nature, concerns only 
the person interested in raising tobacco and is of no special 
interest to the agriculturist in general. We shall not, therefore, 
further consider them in this work, 
