NICOTIANA 



Manufacture 



THE TOBACCO PLANT 



Cigarettes. 

 " Trichy." 



History of 



Indian 



Manufacture. 



Burma Cigars. 



Chemistry. 



Juice. 



Trade. 



Hasulipatam. 

 Indian Snuff. 



And it is customary to read in the public press of the rapidity with which 

 the habit of cigarette-smoking has invaded the social life of the various 

 races and peoples of India. 



Indian Cigars. One of the first persons who realised the possibilities 

 of an Indian cigar trade was Capt. E. A. Campbell, who, in 1876, started 

 a company at Dindigal to improve the well-known " Trichy " of former 

 times. Two years later, however, the company was wound up and little 

 progress made till about 1881, when it was discovered that by importing 

 wrappers from Java and Sumatra a cigar could be turned out that would 

 please the eye of the consumer better than that constructed throughout 

 of Indian leaf. This discovery gave at once the impetus that was needed 

 to bring the excellent cigars of South India to the favourable notice of 

 the world at large. A factory inspected by me in 1903 was found to give 

 employment in all its departments to fully a thousand persons men, 

 women and children. It was ascertained that the usual rate for an 

 expert worker was to produce 400 to 800 cigars a day, according to skill, 

 thus earning from Ks. 20 to Ks. 30 a month in wages. 



But it is perhaps one of the most remarkable features of the tobacco 

 traffic that no attempt has been made by Europeans to organise a 

 tobacco-manufacturing establishment either within the great producing 

 area of Bengal itself or in Burma, where the Bengal leaf is worked up 

 and again returned in the form of the cigars for which Burma has been 

 so long famous. 



Industrial, Chemical, etc. It would be beyond the scope of this work 

 to discuss all the side issues and technical investigations. The Pharmaco- 

 graphia Indica (ii., 632-43) will be found to set forth the salient features of 

 most of these side issues. The Kew Bulletin (Feb. 1896, 49-55) furnishes 

 details regarding the natural sugar present in tobacco. Many publications 

 have dealt with tobacco juice a substance prepared in France and sold 

 by all the licensed vendors. It is claimed to be free from all matter 

 susceptible of fermentation and to contain no resinous substance, but a 

 higher percentage of nicotine than would be the case with an infusion of 

 the leaf. Tobacco juice is largely used as an insecticide. Espin pub- 

 lished in the Bulletin of the Botanical Department of Trinidad for 1900 

 a highly instructive account of tobacco cultivation, manufacture and 

 trade. This was followed up by a most instructive little book issued by 

 Sir D. Morris, Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture for the West Indies, 

 entitled The Cultivation and Curing of Tobacco (1905). The Tropical 

 Agriculturist (Oct. 1905, 595 ; Jan. 1906, 819-26, etc.) contains papers of 

 great interest on the cultivation and manufacture of tobacco in Ceylon. 



[Cf. Heuze, Lea PL Indust., 1895, iv., 43-90 ; Arthur Wigham, English-grown 

 Tobacco ; Kissling, Chem. Anal, of Tobacco ; Jenkins, Effects of Pert. ; Whitney 

 and Means, Changes in Perm. Cigar Leaf, U.S. Dept. Agri., 1899, No. 60 ; 

 Haase, Tobacco Free or Partly Free from Nicotine ; Pietet and Rotschy, New 

 Alkaloids of Tobacco ; Julius Mohr and others, Deli Tobacco of Batavia, Tobacco 

 under Shade, etc., etc. (numerous papers) ; Koning, Der Tabak, Kultur und 

 Biologic, 1900 ; Loew, The New Enzyme in Cured Tobacco Catalase ; Schweiz, 

 The Chem. of Tobacco Smoke : Thorpe and Holmes, The Paraffins of Tobacco 

 Leaf ; G. E. Williams, Nicotine, Its Use and Value in Horticult. ; Delacroix, 

 Fermentation du tabac, in Bull. Sc. Pharm., 1905, 84-93, etc., etc.] 



TRADE IN INDIAN TOBACCO During the opening decade of the 

 19th century India was not known to the commerce of the world as a 

 tobacco-producing country. By 1825, however, we read of Masulipatam 

 in South India producing very superior tobacco, and that snuff was 



808 



