VARIETIES OF THE PLANT. 29 



Indians for cigarette smoking. The inner, or softer 

 portions, of the corn shucks, or husks, are employed for 

 wrappers for the cigarettes. The species found in Mex- 

 ico growing wild is very much branched, and is supposed 

 to be the Nicotiana rustica, which was extensively cul- 

 tivated by the ancient Mexicans, and gradually spread 

 northward. It is stated that a plant of this species, 

 even now, is occasionally found growing wild in New 

 York, and is looked upon as a relic of the cultivation of 

 tobacco by the Indians. It is more hardy than the com- 

 mon species, and it has ovate leaves attached to the 

 stalk by long, naked stems, similar to those of the fern. 

 It has dull greenish-yellow flowers. Some of this spe- 

 cies is cultivated in Germany, Sweden and Russia, by 

 the peasantry. The Turkish, Hungarian and Latakia 

 tobacco is probably of this species. 



Another species is cultivated in Shiraz, Persia, 

 known as Nicotiana Persica. It has white flowers, and, 

 unlike the last mentioned, the leaves, at the point of 

 junction, almost enwrap the stalk. This tobacco, when 

 cured, has a yellowish color, is mild in flavoj, and is 

 almost exclusively used for pipe smoking. 



A variety known as Yara is cultivated in Cuba. It 

 is probably the species known as Nicotiana repanda. 

 It has a totally different flavor from the Havana. It is 

 mostly grown for home consumption. One or two other 

 species have been cultivated, to some extent, but they 

 hardly deserve mention. 



No plant is so easily modified by climate, soil, and 

 different methods of cultivation, as tobacco. Climate 

 imparts flavor ; soil determines texture. The nearly 

 inodorous product of the seedleaf districts of our North- 

 ern States (north of the 40th degree of latitude), if 

 planted South, acquires, in a few generations, the sweet- 

 ness of the Southern tobacco. In amplitude of leaf it 

 decreases, but increases in thickness, sweetness, and in 



