. TOBACCO. 



NAM— VARIETIES—HISTORY— COMMERCIAL VALIE. 



Tobacco (nicotiana tahacum) probaljly received its 

 generic name, Nicotiana, from JoIbi Xicot, of Xismes, 

 in Languedoc. Nicot was sent ambassador from the 

 King of France to Portugal ; he there obtained the seeds 

 from a Dutchman, who had brought them from Florida. 

 Nicot is said to have presented the first plant to Catha- 

 rine de Medicis. From this circumstance the former 

 French name, herhe a la reine (Queen's plant) is supposed 

 to have been derived. 



Its specific name, Tobacco, which has now displaced 

 all others, is believed, by some, to have been derived 

 from Tobago, a AVest India Island. Others, and among 

 them the lexicographer, Webster, trace it to Tabaco, a 

 province in Yucatan, where it is said (probably without 

 truth) that the Spaniards first discovered it. According 

 to Las Casas, the Spaniards, in their first voyage, saw 

 many of the natives smoking dry leaves, rolled up in 

 tubes, called tahacos. Charlevoix, the historian of San 

 Domingo, relates, that the instrument used by the 

 natives in smoking, was called tabaco. The name 

 tobacco, pretty evidently, comes, therefore, either from 



