November, 1908. J 



141 



Edible Products. 



upon the markets can be properly 

 measured except after careful cleaning 

 and separating of the heaviest seed. By 

 careful winnowing we have found that 

 in many samples of Cuban seed the chaff 

 and dirt run as high as 10 per cent. 



We have made many germination 

 tests of samples of Cuban seed. If seeds 

 are cleaned and the heaviest carefully 

 separated we have found that they will 

 then give a 60 per cent, and higher ger- 

 mination test. The lighter and smaller 

 seeds from these same samples gave ger- 

 mination tests usually lower than 30 per 

 cent, and very rarely higher. The 

 smaller and lighter seed produces poorer 

 plants, and in the seed beds even the 30 

 per cent, that might sprout woidd only 

 interfere with the better, posturas and 

 would probably largely go to make up 

 the usual percentage that is discarded 

 from every seed bed as too weak 

 and spindling to be usable. Experts 

 in the United States Department of 

 Agiiculture have devised a machine for 

 cleaning tobacco seed and separating it 

 according to weight, and this machine 

 is manufactured by Messrs. Queen & Co. 

 of Philadelphia. The thinner planting 

 that good seed makes possible not only 

 produces better posturas but hinders the 

 spread of the fungus which thrives best 

 and spreads most rapidly where plants 

 are crowded. 



(b.) Varieties. 

 The name " Cuban Tobacco" is to-day 

 an almost meaningless term. One 

 may go into almost any vega and find 

 there a mixture of many types, some 

 of them presenting wholly distinct 

 varieties, ranging all the way from the 

 ''lengua de vaca" form to a very broad- 

 leaved and very desirable type. After 

 the ten years' war, seed of Mexican and 

 States tobacco that were more or less 

 like the original Cuban, was introduced 

 here in large quantities to supply the 

 then almost universal demand. Later a 

 law was passed calling for the destruc- 

 tion of all these foreign tobaccoes. Such 

 a law was, however, utterly futile, since 

 the blood of these tobaccoes was already 

 spread broadcast and the seed distri- 

 buted entirely beyond hope of complete 

 extermination. These tobaccoes are 

 lusty growers and coarser than the 

 genuine old-time Cuban. Their fruit is 

 larger and more copious, and possibly 

 was, for this reason, at first more com- 

 monly gathered by vegueros. The result 

 has naturally been that the Mexican 

 tobaccoes (Nicol iana tabacum variety 

 macrophyllum) are to-day predominant 

 in a large part of Cuban vegas. At the 

 Estaeion and in neighbouring vegas it is 

 the pole type, none of the original 'pure 

 50 



Cuban tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum 

 variety havanensis) being present. 

 These forms were long ago (some as 

 early as 1818) characterized in exact 

 botanical terms so that they can now be 

 recognized with certainty by the techni- 

 cal expert. Ordinary commercial Cuban 

 seed of to-day is largely, and often alto- 

 gether Mexican tobacco. We will admit 

 readily enough that it greatly improves 

 any variety of tobacco to bring it here 

 and grow it under the soil and climatic 

 conditions of Cuba, — improves its aroma 

 and texture, and make a more valuable 

 product of it, — but we will not for a 

 moment admit that it transmutes the 

 variety into something else. If small 

 lots of foreign varieties are openly 

 planted and allowed to flower in Cuban 

 vegas they would eventually be crossed 

 and recrossed until they were completely 

 blended with the common Cuban forms. 

 But after the ten years' war was over, 

 the introduced tobaccoes were the pre- 

 dominant ones, and the original Cuban 

 tobacco was the one to be swamped 

 under the stronger characters of the 

 other. For tobaccoes with exactly the 

 characters of the introduced types are 

 now the dominant forms. Suppose that 

 most of the native razor-back hogs of 

 Cuba were exterminated and great num- 

 bers of improved red hogs were intro- 

 duced. It would mean the complete dis- 

 appearance of the original form of 

 native hog, and not all the effects of 

 climate and food could transmute the 

 red hog into the former type of Cuban 

 razor-back. 



There is little question but what in 

 the more remote and isolated vegas of 

 Pinar del Rio, where the posturas have 

 always been as a rule home-grown, there 

 will yet be found the origiual and 

 genuine Cuban tobaccc, true tc the 

 original type. It only remains for care- 

 ful search to be made during the flower- 

 ing and fruiting season of tobacco, 

 along the foothills and through the 

 mountain districts. Once found, the 

 more desirable forms could be restored 

 in all the vegas where it was desired in 

 one to two seasons. The work only 

 requires proper facilities for getting 

 about over the country and then free- 

 dom of action ; with these a very great 

 deal could be accomplished in a very 

 short time in the much-needed work of 

 selection and improvement of existing 

 Cuban tobaccoes. 



Through constant inquiries about the 

 suitability of still other varieties of 

 tobacco for Cuban vegas, we became 

 interested in their possible introduction, 

 hoping to find some that under Cuban 

 conditions might be an improvement 



