ORIGIN AND SPREAD. 



Warehouses for the inspection. of tobacco were first 

 established in Virginia in 1730, the object of which was 

 to prevent the exportation of trash, bad, unsound and 

 unmerchantable tobacco. The minimum weight for a 

 hogshead was 800 pounds. So rapidly did this industry 

 grow, that in 1754 the exports from Virginia alone were 

 50,000 hogsheads. During this period, tobacco was 

 worth, in London, lid to 12Jd per pound. Only 24,500 

 hogsheads were made in Virginia in 1758, and the price 

 rose as high as fifty shillings per hundred pounds in 

 that province. The 

 annual average ex- 

 ports of tobacco from 

 Virginia from 1745 

 to 1755 inclusive, 

 were 44,000 hogs- 

 heads. The annual 

 exportation from the 

 American colonies 

 from 1763 to 1770, 

 was 66,780 hogsheads 

 of 1000 pounds each. 

 For the four years 

 just before the Rev- 



, ,. FIG. 4. A TOBACCO "DRINKER" INHALING 



Olutionary war, 100,- SMOKE AND EXPELLING IT BY THE NOSE, 



000,000 pounds were As PRACTICED BY THE DUTCH ABOUT 1600. 



Copied from a rare book on tobacco published at 



sent abroad annually. Rotterdam, 1623. 



The average exports during the war of the Revolution 



were 12,000,000 pounds. 



Kentucky, now producing nearly one-half of all the 

 tobacco grown in the United States, was settled mainly 

 by Virginians, and the culture of tobacco was coeval 

 with its first settlement. As early as 1785, Gen Wilkin- 

 son, of Kentucky, entered into a contract with the Span- 

 ish authorities in New Orleans to supply them with sev- 

 eral boat loads of tobacco. It is believed that most of 



