273 



TOBACCO CULTURE AND TRADE. 



TOBACCO CULTURE AND TRADE. 



274 



Committees on the dignity of the Peerage ; ' the other, the large 

 treatise on ' Titles of Honour,' by the learned Selden. The latter was 

 first printed in 4to, 1614 ; again, with large additions, folio, 1631. 



TOBACCO CULTURE AND TRADE. Tobacco is the common 

 name of the plants belonging to the Monopetalous genus Nicotiana. 

 Tobacco was the name used by the Caribbees for the pipe in which 

 they smoked ; but this word was transferred by the Spaniards to the 

 herb itself. The genus Xicotiana contains about forty species, most of 

 them yielding tobacco for smoking, and many of them cultivated in 

 the gardens of Europe. The name Nicotiana was given to these plants 

 after Jean Nicot, of Nismes, in Languedoc, who was an agent of the 

 king of France in Portugal, and there procured the seeds of the tobacco 

 from a Dutchman who had procured them in Florida. Nicot sent 

 them to France in 1560. 



The botanical characteristics of the tobacco-plant are described under 

 NICOTIANA in the NAT. HIST. Drv. ; its medical uses are discussed 

 under NICOTIANA TABACCM in the present Division ; and its chemical 

 properties under NICOTIXE. We need scarcely revert to the following 

 points : that the common Virginian tobacco, the Nicotiana tabacum, is 

 the chief kind ; and that the Orinoco, Turkish, and Persian are the 

 kinds ranking next in extent of use. 



Cultivation. The cultivation of tobacco is most extensively carried 

 on in the United States of America. The plant requires considerable 

 heat to come to perfection ; but with care and attention, and by treat- 

 ing it as an exotic, it may be very successfully cultivated in much 

 colder climates. The least frost injures it. The seeds of the tobacco- 

 plant are sown in a prepared seed-bed, and carefully protected from 

 frost; for which purpose straw and fern are used. When once the 

 danger of spring frosts is over, they may be safely transplanted into 

 ground which has been laid in narrow beds with intervals between 

 them, dug out deep, and richly manured with sheeps' dung. These 

 beds are two feet wide at top, and two feet six inches at bottom, with 

 sloping sides to keep the earth up ; the intervals are only six or eight 

 inches, and serve not only as drains to keep the beds dry, but as paths 

 from which the surface of the beds may be stirred and weeded. Two 

 rows of plants about eight inches high are planted at equal distances 

 along the beds ; the rows are sixteen or eighteen inches apart, and the 

 plants at the same distance from each other. In warmer climates the 

 plants are placed three feet apart, as there they grow to a much greater 

 size, and cover more ground. A moist day is chosen for transplanting. 

 The plants are taken up carefully with a small spade or trowel without 

 shaking the earth much from the roots ; they are placed slanting in a 

 shallow basket, and thus carried to the prepared beds ; they have a 

 stem six or eight inches long. They are inserted into holes made 

 by a proper instrument, so that the fibres of the roots and the ad- 

 hering earth may be completely buried up to the bottom of the stem. 

 Four or six leaves should be on the plant ; if more, the lowest are 

 pinched off. Great attention is paid to the beds all the time the 

 tobacco is growing; weeds are carefully eradicated, and the earth 

 repeatedly stirred between the plants with hoes and narrow spades to 

 accelerate the growth. When the plants acquire a certain size, the 

 lower leaves are pinched off, to increase the bulk of the upper. A fine 

 tobacco-plant should have from eight to twelve large succulent leaves, 

 and a stem from three to six feet high ; the top is pinched off to pre- 

 vent its running and drawing the sap from the leaves, and lateral shoots 

 are carefully pinched off as soon as they appear, to prevent branching. 

 A few plants are left for seed, and of these the head) are allowed to 

 shoot the full length. The seeds are so small and so numerous on a 

 plant, that a few plants produce a sufficiency of seed for the next crop. 

 The plantations are continually examined, and every leaf injured by 

 insects or otherwise is pulled off. Tobacco takes about four months 

 from the time of planting to come to perfection ; that is, from May to 

 September, when the leaves are gathered before there is any danger 

 from frost : one single white frost would spoil the whole crop, and 

 cause it to rot. As soon as the colour of the leaves becomes of a paler 

 green inclined to yellow, they are fit to be gathered ; they then begin 

 to droop, and emit a stronger odour, and feel rough and somewhat 

 brittle to the touch. When the dew is evaporated and the sun shines, 

 the leaves may be most advantageously gathered, which is done by 

 cutting down the plant close to the ground, or even a little under the 

 surface. They are left on the ground to dry till the evening, taking 

 care to turn them often, that they may dry equally and more rapidly. 

 They are housed before the evening dew falls, which would injure 

 them, and laid up under cover in heaps to sweat during the night, and 

 some mats are thrown over the heaps to keep in the heat. If they are 

 very full of juice, they are sometimes carried out again the next day 

 to dry in the sun ; but most commonly they are left to sweat for three 

 or four days, and are then moved and hung up to dry in sheds which 

 allow a thorough draught of air but keep out the rain. Every tobacco- 

 plantation has such buildings, proportioned to the extent of the culti- 

 vation. In some places the leaves are now stripped off the stems and 

 strung on packthread to dry. In others the whole plant is hung on 

 pegs placed in rows at regular distances, and fixed on laths which run 

 across the building. When the plants are quite dry they are removed 

 in moist or foggy weather ; for if the air is very dry the leaves would 

 fall to dust. They are laid in heaps on hurdles and covered over, that 

 they may sweat again, which they do but slowly. The heaps are care- 

 fully examined from time to time to see that they do not heat too 



AETS AKD ML Diy. VOL. VIII. 



much ; and, according to the season and the nature of the plants, 

 whether more or less filled with sap, they remain so a week or a 

 fortnight. If the leaves were not stripped off at first, they are taken 

 off now, when the proper fermentation is completed. They are sorted ; 

 those which grow on the top of the stem, in the middle, and at the 

 bottom, are laid separately, as being of different qualities. They are 

 tied together in bundles of ten or twelve leaves, again dried carefully, 

 ranged in casks horizontally, and pressed in, by means of a round 

 board, by lever or screw, as soon as a certain quantity has been laid in ; 

 the pressure is equal to that of a weight of several tons. This is 

 essential to the safe transportation of the tobacco ; and it is thus that 

 the great bulk of it arrives from the places where its cultivation is 

 most extensive, as in America. 



The finest tobacco, however, is made into rolls, which from their 

 shape are called carrots. The leaves are placed together by large 

 handfuls, and wound very tightly round by strips of fibrous wood or 

 strong grass, at a tune when the air is somewhat moist ; they partially 

 consolidate, and require only to be rasped to make the finest and most 

 genuine snuff. 



The refuse stems of the tobacco are sometimes burned ; but it is 

 best to let them rot in the ground, where they are converted into good 

 manure for the next crop. From the high fctate of cultivation of the 

 land, it is left very rich for any other crop after the tobacco ; but as 

 this is quite a garden cultivation, the tobacco recurs very soon on the 

 same ground ; the abundant manuring and deep trenching prevent any 

 bad effects from this frequent recurrence. 



Manufacture. Tobacco is packed in hogsheads for shipment : it is 

 done with the greatest care, each bundle being laid separately. They 

 are ranged side by side, and the direction of the points of the leaves is 

 reversed with every alternate row. When the cask is about one-quarter 

 filled, the tobacco is compressed by a powerful lever-press, which 

 reduces the thickness of the layer from about twelve inches to three ; 

 and the pressure is continued several hours, that the tobacco may 

 become so consolidated as not to spring up again when it is removed. 

 In this way the cask is filled, by successive stages, until it contains a 

 mass of tobacco-leaves so dense and compact, that a hogshead 48 inches 

 in length, and 30 or 32 inches in diameter, will contain 1000 Ibs. 

 weight. 



Upon the arrival of the tobacco in this country it is conveyed to 

 bonding-warehouses. Those of the metropolis, which are of immense 

 extent, are situated chiefly at the London Docks, where every cask is 

 opened to examine its contents, and to remove any tobacco which may 

 have been injured in the passage. This arrangement is due to the 

 operation of the high import-duty, which renders it better for the 

 owner to sacrifice tobacco that may have become impaired in value than 

 to pay the duty upon it. For the purpose of examination, the head of 

 the hogshead is knocked out, some of the staves are loosened, and the 

 hogshead is taken completely off from the tobacco. If it be found 

 that, from defective packing, from the action of sea-water, or from any 

 other cause, part of the surface has become so injured as not to be 

 worth preserving, such part is removed, with large powerful cutting 

 instruments, by small quantities at a time. This requires considerable 

 power, owing to the intense compression of the tobacco, especially 

 upon the cylindrical sides of the mass, where the cutters act across the 

 direction of the stalks and leaves. The damaged tobacco thus removed 

 is consumed in a furnace on the premises. The remainder of the mass 

 is accurately weighed, and then returned into the hogshead. 



The manufacture of the tobacco-leaves into the numerous varieties 

 of tobacco for smoking in pipes consisting of the leaf cut up into 

 shreds or filaments, and usuUy divested of the stalk ; into ciyars, which 

 are bundles of the tobacco-leaf rolled compactly together into a con- 

 venient form for smoking; and into muff, which consists partly of the 

 stalks of the leaves, and partly of the leaves themselves, cut and ground 

 into the state of powder is usually conducted by three distinct classes 

 of traders. 



The first operation performed upon a hogshead of tobacco, after it 

 has been removed to the manufactory and opened, is the digging out 

 of the solid tobacco with iron instruments. The pieces thus detached 

 are then sprinkled with water, which facilitates the separation of the 

 small bundles from each other, and also of the leaves composing eaoh 

 bundle. If the tobacco be of the kind called hand-work, that is to 

 say, with the stalks remaining attached to the leaves, it must now be 

 stripped, unless indeed it be required for the production of a kind of 

 tobacco called bird'i-tye, which contains a portion of stalk as well as 

 leai The removal of the stalks is usually effected in England by 

 women or boys, who fold the leaf along the middle, and, by means of a 

 small instrument, separate the stalks from the leaves, and lay them 

 aside in different heaps. To prepare them for being cut into shreds or 

 filaments, the leaves are pressed together in large numbers in the form 

 of a cake, during which operation they are occasionally moistened, not 

 only to enable them to cake together the more readily, but also in 

 order to improve the subsequent flavour of the tobacco. The details 

 of the machinery employed for compressing and cutting the tobacco 

 vary in different establishment*. Originally the cutting apparatus con- 

 sisted simply of a long knife worked by hand. Hand-engines were 

 then introduced, and such are still partially used, in which the knife is 

 moved by a train of machinery, which also shifts the cake of tobacco 

 between each cut, so as to make it ready for the next. This kind of 



T 



