“KICKLESS” TOBACCO

Hokitika Guardian, 3 April 1920, Page 4

“KICKLESS” TOBACCO

AN AMERICAN AIM.

SAN FRANCISCO, February 21. ' Now that tho reformers have made this country dry they are turning their attention to tobacco, and smokers may have to face the necessity of taking to bear tobacco to appease their craving for the weed, just as drunkards are • forced to resort to near beer for some-

thing resembling old time liquor,”-.said G. Edwin Fore, of New York, speaking in Washington. “It is reported,” he added, “that scientists, realise that the ‘vile weed’, as Sir Walter Raleigh knew it, is doomed, already have taken steps toward perfecting a nicotincless tobacco. Experiments so far have failed to oroduce tobacco entirely free from nicotine, but have succeeded in reducing the ‘voltage.’

“The method employed is said to be plant selection, such as Luther Bur- ; bank has used with various fruits and flowers. A row of plants is set out and grown, and their blossoms covered with paper bags to prevent c ross-pollination. When the plants are ripened they are gathorod and analysed, and the seeds from the plants showing the lowest percentage of nicotine are saved, and the process repeated. Growers of the tobacco who used to make the famous Pittsßurg stogies arc said to have reduced the nicotine content of some cigar leaf plants from three and a half to one and a quarter per cent, and they expect to keep on until they reduce it to a fraction something like one-tenth of one per cent, beer!” The only drawback to tin's “kickless” tobacoc is said to he in tlie aroma and the taste, neither of which is improved by tho denaturising process.