November, 1908. J 



433 



Edible Products. 



surpassed experience of the Dutch as 

 planters ; their capacity for organising 

 and handling native and Chinese labour, 

 and, lastly, the thoroughness of their 

 methods which have raised tobacco- 

 growing to the plane of a highly special- 

 ised and intelligent cultivation. 



Deli planters realised from the start 

 that, for the profitable cultivation of 

 tobacco, there is only room for a product 

 of marked characteristics, and qualities 

 answering tbe well-defined requirements 

 of the trade for its different purposes. 

 It is no use, for instance, for the planter 

 to strive to supply a tobacco that will 

 answer, to take an extreme case, at the 

 same time the purposes of a cigar wrap- 

 per, and those of a pipe or chewing to- 

 bacco. The qualities required for each 

 type exclude each other. He should aim 

 at excellence in the type of tobacco for 

 which his soil and climate are most 

 suited, and, to reach the standard of 

 excellence, he should be well in touch 

 with the market and informed as to the 

 actual demands of the day. 



A Wrapper Leap.— In fact, a high 

 grade of tobacco of any class can be 

 grown only by a specialist. He must 

 know precisely what field practice, what 

 methods of planting, of harvesting, of 

 fermentation will produce the best re- 

 sults towards the end he is working for, 

 whether it be fineness of aroma, or the 

 size and weight of texture and lightness 

 of leaf. This practical knowledge should, 

 moreover, go hand in hand with a close 

 attention to the researches of scientific 

 investigators, which have already done 

 much of value to elucidate the actions of 

 various manures on the qualities of the 

 leaf, the facts which govern the evolu- 

 tion of colour, of flavour and aroma 

 during cultivation and fermentation, 

 and also the life habits of the insect 

 pests and the nature of the diseases to 

 which, from seed to staple, tobacco is 

 subject. 



Deli planters, having recoguised the 

 capacity of their laud to grow a wrapper 

 leaf of very high quality, have stopped 

 at nothing to maintain it or even to im- 

 prove it. As the demands of trade and 

 of fashion became more exacting, they 

 altered their modes of cultivation, of 

 harvesting and of fermentation. Prom 

 broad planting, they resorted to closer 

 planting; abandoning their former prac- 

 tice of cutting the whole plant they 

 have now adopted the plucking of the 

 leaves one by one, which entails an 

 enormous complication ot the work, to 

 be understood only when we consider 

 that each coolie has to handle, one by 

 one, at least 180,000 leaves. A a result of 

 55 



these improvements, the cost of produc- 

 tion of one pound of leaf, which ould 

 formerly be grown for 75 cents of a 

 florin, has now risen to something like 

 one florin. 



Applied Science.— It can be truly 

 said that the whole course of cultivating 

 and curing tobacco leaf for wrappers is 

 a system of applied science, compared to 

 which other branches of Agriculture 

 and preparation of vegeta ble products, 

 with perhaps the exception of such in- 

 tensive culture as the Paris " marai- 

 chers " and such like, is simple and easy. 

 It has, in fact, reached such a degree of 

 miuuteness that it appears almost 

 perfect, and yet, it is doubtful if we 

 have seen the last of improvements. 

 Such a highly specialised industry, con- 

 stituting, as it does, a virtual monopoly, 

 can hardly stand still in the face of the 

 brilliant results achieved within late 

 years by the planters of Florida and 

 Carolina from Sumatra seed. 



If the accounts which we read are not 

 over-hopeful, the tobacco which they 

 now produce is of such fine qualities 

 that New York brokers declare that it 

 cannot be told from the imported 

 Sumatra leaf, and they predict, as a 

 result, a complete revolution in the 

 tobacco industry of their country. 

 Already at the Paris Exposition of 1900 

 some specimens of this tobacco, ex- 

 hibited by the Owl Commercial Com- 

 pany, had been adjudged a higher order 

 of merit than the Sumatra exhibits, as 

 they were found thinner and more 

 elastic, 



We may take it for granted that the 

 Florida growers will not stop in their 

 endeavour to improve still further their 

 crops, which have now become so valu- 

 able that many go the length of shading 

 their land under cheese cloth, or under 

 thin pine slats. It is stated that some of 

 these crops yield 80 per cent, of wrapper 

 leaf, and that the best among them are 

 of such a fine quality that 200 leaves go 

 to the pound, two pounds covering 1,000 

 cigars ; and, in the 16 inch size, it takes 

 25 leaves more to make up a pound 

 weight than it does of the Sumatra leaf. 



A Telling Test.— I believe there is a 

 tendency among some of the Deli 

 planters to thiuk lightly of these efforts 

 of the Florida planters, and that their 

 confidence in the superiority of the Deli 

 product remains unshaken ; but this may 

 turn out to be a mistake, and in this con- 

 nection, the following anecdote tells a 

 plain enough tale. 



A friend of mine, formeily a well- 

 known Deli planter, who went to the 



