128 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



is not mentioned in Chinese writings nor represented in 

 their pottery before the year 1680. In the next place, 

 it appears that careful examination of old herbariums 

 and of the records of early travellers who knew plants 

 well and recorded all they saw, proves that no species of 

 tobacco is a native of Asia. There are fifty species of 

 tobacco, but all are American excepting the Nicotiana 

 suaveolens, which is a native of the Australian 

 continent, and the Nicotiana fragrans, which is a native 

 of the Isle of Pines, near New Caledonia. 



Forty-eight different species of tobacco (that is to 

 say, of the genus Nicotiana) are found in America. 

 Of these Nicotiana tabacum is the only one which has 

 been extensively cultivated. It has been found wild 

 in the State of Ecuador, but was cultivated by the 

 natives both of North and South America before the 

 advent of Europeans. It seems probable that all the 

 tobaccos grown in the Old World for smoking or 

 snuffing are only cultivated varieties often with very 

 special qualities of the N. tabacum, with the exception 

 of the Shiraz tobacco plant, which, though called 

 N. persica, is of Brazilian origin, and the N. rustica, 

 of Linnaeus, a native of Mexico, which has a yellow 

 flower, and yields a coarse kind of tobacco. This has 

 been cultivated in South America and also in Asia 

 Minor. But tobaccos so different as the Havannah, 

 the Maryland and Virginian, the incomparable Latakia, 

 the Manilla, and the Roumelian or Turkish all come 

 from culture- varieties of the one great species, Nicotiana 

 tabacum. 



The treatment of tobacco-leaf to prepare it for use 

 in smoking, snuffing, and chewing requires great skill 

 and care, and is directed by the tradition and experience 

 of centuries. As is the case with "hay," the dried 

 tobacco-leaf undergoes a kind of fermentation, and, in 

 fact, more than one such change. The cause of the 

 fermentation is a micro-organism which multiplies in 



