22 TOBACCO LEAF. 



this crop, where it is destined to be grown on a com- 

 mercial scale. 



Thus the present status of the tobacco industry 

 throughout the world emphasizes the wisdom of guaran- 

 teeing the home market to the American producer. 

 How important this is, appears from the fact that within 

 less than two decades our imports of tobacco have 

 jumped from a nominal figure to equal half the value of 

 our tobacco exports the latter a fruit of four hundred 

 years of effort ! To buy foreign leaf at an average of 

 sixty cents a pound, and pay for it with domestic to- 

 bacco at eight cents per pound, is a policy that cannot 

 be justified by any economic theory, when the truth is 

 that leaf of the same quality as the imported can be 

 grown in the United States. 



IS TOBACCO INJURIOUS TO THE HEALTH OF THE 

 BODY, THE MORALS, OR THE INTELLECTUAL 

 FACULTIES ? 



The enormous increase in the consumption of to- 

 bacco, previously outlined, has been accomplished in the 

 face of what was formerly the bitterest opposition. 

 During the past twenty years this feeling against the 

 tobacco habit has somewhat waned, until the campaign 

 against the weed is now mainly directed against its being 

 indulged in by the young, or to excess by the old. 

 Snuff talcing is on the decrease, it is a question whether 

 chewing is not also on the decline, and the vast increase 

 is in the various ways of consuming tobacco by smoking. 



Tobacco has, on the one hand, been denounced as 

 the fruitful parent of all that is physically injurious or 

 morally depraved, and on the other hand, its use is re- 

 garded as innocent, wholesome, pleasing and comforting, 

 adding to the happiness, while subtracting nothing from 

 the health of the body, or from the elevation of the mor- 

 als or the clearness of the intellectual faculties. The 



