EARLY HISTORY OF TOBACCO. 479 



from their colonies the price gradually fell while the demand 

 and consumption for it increased in proportion to the falling 

 off of prices. From the island of Trinidad, Europe received its 

 finest tobacco, and it continued to maintain its reputation as 

 such until that variety known as Yarinas tobacco from South 

 America appeared ; this variety attracted the attention of 

 European buyers and consumers, from its superiority in 

 flavor and appearance which it has maintained for more 

 than two hundred and fifty years. 



In South America, the cultivation of tobacco took its rise 

 in Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia. The varieties there 

 produced had acquired an established reputation as early as 

 1600, together with St. Lucia, Philippine and Margarita 

 tobaccos. Early in the Seventeenth Century, the Dutch 

 became the great producers and importers into Europe, and 

 the growths of their colonies continued to furnish a large 

 proportion of the quantity used until English colonial tobacco 

 made its appearance from Virginia. 



The Plymouth and London companies from its first appear- 

 ance in their markets, saw its vast importance as an article 

 of agriculture and commerce, and in twenty years after the first 

 planting of it, began to reap rich returns from its sale and pro- 

 duction. From this time forward, not only in America, but 

 in Europe and Asia, its cultivation spread among other 

 nations until at length it has become one of the great sources 

 of revenue of almost every country, and a leading product of 

 nearly every clime. The islands of St. Domingo, Trinidad, St. 

 Lucia and Martinique, do not produce as large quantities of 

 tobacco as formerly ; its cultivation in the West Indies being 

 now confined chiefly .to the island of Cuba. 



This island produces at the present time the finest cigar 

 leaf of the West Indies, which is considered by many as the 

 best grown. The value of the annual product of Cuba is 

 estimated at $20,000,000, nearly as much as that of the entire 

 United States. Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Paraguay, 

 which are the tobacco-producing countries of South America, 

 furnish Europe with a large amount of leaf tobacco. In 



