10 ST NICOTINE 



the manor-house, he smoked his first pipe of tobacco in his 

 garden, sheltered by the spreading branches of four yew 

 trees that still may be seen forming a thatch-like covering 

 for a summer-house. And in this Youghall garden he 

 planted Ireland's first instalment of the Indian weed. Ever 

 foremost among the high-souled and adventurous, he 

 neglected not other like humble things that he thought 

 would be of service to his fellow-creatures, for here, too, he 

 planted and cultivated Ireland's greatest blessing, the 

 potato, which fostered by prudence, rapidly gave to that 

 wild and lawless land an abundance of food for the 

 impoverished peasantry. He planted likewise, the affane 

 cherry, and the sweetly perfumed wall-flower, which he had 

 brought from the Azores, and which may still be seen 

 growing on the banks of the Blackwater. 



' Much doubting me if aught I have said can profit this 

 goodly company, I will call upon one who has seen the 

 plant in its native soil and can describe its uses among the 

 Indians. For the herb, which is commonly called tobacco, 

 hath many names and divers virtues.' Then rose before 

 the recumbent throng, the historian of England's first 

 colony in the New World, Thomas Harriot, mathematician 

 and astronomer. He began : — 



' A brief and true report I will render you of what I 

 learned of the herb, the truth of which can be attested by 

 Ralf Lane, the worthy governor of the new found land of 

 Virginia. It befel me that I went out with a number of my 

 countrymen to that far-off land in the Western Seas the 

 great Columbus had discovered, that I might make record 

 of all that happened concerning us on that perilous venture. 

 It was undertaken by the orders of Sir Walter Raleigh, and 

 was under the command of Sir Richard Grenville. Soon 

 after we had made our peace with the natives, and they 



