44: 



VARIETY OF KINDS. 



" Here is great store of tobacco, which the salvages call 

 apooke : howbeit it is not of the best kyiid, it is but poor and 

 weake, and of a byting taste; it grows not fully a yard 

 above ground, bearing a little yellow flower like to henbane ; 

 the leaves are short and thick, somewhat round at the upper 

 end ; whereas the best tobacco of Trynidado and the Oro- 

 noque, is large, sharpe, and growing two or three yardes 

 from the ground, bearing a flower of the breadth of our bell- 

 flower, in England ; the salvages here dry the leaves of this 

 apooke over the fier, and sometymes in the sun, and crumble 

 yt into poudre, stalk, leaves, and all, taking the same in 

 pipes of earth, which very ingeniously they can make." 



It would seem then, if the 

 account given by Strachey 

 be correct, that the tobacco 

 cultivated by the Indians 

 of North America was of 

 inferior growth and quality 

 to that grown in many por- 

 tions of South America, and 

 more particularly in the 

 West India islands. As 

 there are still many varie- 

 ties of the plant grown in 

 America, so there doubtless 

 was when cultivated by the Indians. While most probably 

 the quality of leaf remained the same from generation to 

 generation, still in some portions of America, owing more to 

 the soil and climate than the mode of cultivating by them, 

 they cured very good tobacco. We can readily see how this 

 might have been, from numerous experiments made with 

 both American and European varieties. Nearly all of the 

 early Spanish, French and English voyagers who landed in 

 America were attracted by the beauty of the country. Ponce 

 De Leon, who sailed from Spain to the Floridas, was charmed 

 by the plants and flowers, and doubtless the first sight of 

 them strengthened his belief in the existence somewhere in 

 this -tropical region of the fountain of youth. 



The discovery of tobacco proved of the greatest advantage 



THE CONTRAST. 



