IMPROVEMENT IN PLANTS. 31 



suppose) is a cup of sack, they think it be no bad physick." 

 Dr. William Barclay in his work on Tobacco, (1614) 

 declares " that it worketh \vonderous cures." He not only 

 defends the herb but the " land where it groweth." At thig 

 time the tobacco plant like Indian Corn was very small, 

 possessing but few of the qualities now required to make it 

 merchantable, When first exported to Spain and Portugal 

 from the West Indies and South America, and even by the 

 English from Virginia, the leaf was dark in color and strong 

 and rank in flavor. This, however, seems to have been the 

 standard in regard to some varieties while others are spoken 

 of by some of the early writers upon tobacco as " sweet." 



The tobacco (uppowoc) grown by the Indians in America, 

 at the time of its discovery, and more particularly in North 

 America, would compare better with the suckers of the 

 largest varieties of the plant rather than with even the small- 

 est species of the plant now cultivated. At the present time 

 tobacco culture is considered a science in order to secure the 

 colors in demand, and that are fashionable, and also the 

 right texture of leaf now so desirable in all tobaccos designed 

 for wrappers. Could the Indians, who cultivated the plant 

 on the banks of the James, the Amazon and other rivers of 

 America, now look upon the plant growing in rare luxuriance 

 upon the same fields where they first raised it, they could 

 hardly realize them to be the same varieties that they had 

 previously planted. 



