Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-23
MACHINE SMOKING
TESTING TOBACCO All THE AahI-
CULTURAL DEPARTMENT.

1t Is certainly painful sight for any
lover Of good tobacco to see souiless ma
chine with half dozen good cigars In it's
glass mouth, calmly smoking them up and
no one getting any benefit from II. Yet. this
is the sight frequently seen down In q
little basement room of the Department of
Agriculture, whene they are carrying on
continuously experiments in the burning Of
tobacco leaf with view to improving the
American crop.
1t may be said in passing that the de-
partment has succeeded In the past season
or two In materially improving the quail
ity of tobacco grown in several sections
of the country. 1t has been at work on
the problem for years. but it is only with
in short time that it has hit what 1t
believes to De one Of the secrets Of produc-
ing a good tobacco. The questions of soil.
climate and fertilizer had all been investi-
gated and unquestionably to a degree they
do affect the plant But 1t was found on
further Investigation that plants from the
same crop. cultivated and fertilized in the
same way and grown on the same soil
would show surprising Emergencies OF
quality. Some of the leaf would burn even
pleasant qualities. The plant next to 1t
might absolutely refuse to burn at all.
This has come to be known in the depart
ment as asbestos leaf" and some OF the
| SClSuVtSlS say they Del1GV6 a pie VI the
leaves in the open would smolder and go
out II they were soaked with kerosene and
set fire to. 1t has been suggested. in fact,
that by a careful selection of plants the
government might raise a fireproof variety
that would replace celulose packing In war
ships and be useful for number OF other
purposes except smoking.
Breeding and Selection.
But to return to the question of breeding
q nd So1octiop witt wi n making e.
thing beside fireproof cigars. 1t has been
found that by selecting the good varieties
from a tobacco field and protecting the
seeds so that they would not be crossed
with undesirable plants, that the average
OF the next years planting could be inn
-oved so as to be hardly recognizable.
L, s has been done through much of Con-
necticut, where there will be fields spot
TIED over with seed bags and special patches
of tobacco grown. in which all of the seed
bearing plants will be protected. OF course
there are a great many mistakes made and
the farmers still waste great deal of
effort and get the good seeds COMPOUNDED
with the bad. But the movement is in
the right direction, and the yield is stead
lily improving in quality.
When the samples are brought into the
department, there is a small steam heated
basement room wnere they are kept at a
certain temperature and certain degree
of moisture. and made up as needed into
cigars for testing. Sometimes the testing
machine, which is merely series of glass
tubes with vacuum produced by jet of
water, is made to smoke whole cigars, and
their burning is noted The seeds from
the best plants are saved and used for
the next years crop. But as one of the
large industries is the production Of
wrapper tobacco the investigators have a
method of burning the wrapper only. A
tobacco leaf, cut for wrapper, is rolled
on a wooden cigar form and allowed. to
dry. Then it is slipped over a glass mouth
piece and lighted while the machine is set
to smoking. good wrapper leaf will burn
up completely, and in this way seeds are
selected that will produce the very best re-
suits AS the case has stood heretofore, the
farmers collected the seed at random, and
as the whole field had been fertilized by
wind and insects, the crop was spotted
and the good and bad verieties were hops
leSsly mixed