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Tobacco Culture. 



By Samuel Lamp., Department of Agriculture. 



Tiu: history of tobacco-growing in tliis Colony dates Lack to very 

 early times. Mr. Rd. Hardy, now residing near Nabiac, on the 

 Wollaraba River, told me that ho well remembered being employed 

 in the tobacco-fields on the Hastings River more than sixty-five years 

 ago ; that large quantities of tobacco leaf were then grown and 

 cured there, pressed in wool-presses into woolpacks, and shipped 

 away by sea from Port Macquarie, he thought, to England or Scot- 

 laud. How far Mr. Hardy^s memory served him correctly I have 

 no means of verifying, but it is common knoAvledge that tobacco 

 was grown on most of the old sheep stations for the purpose of 

 making sheep- dip, and tobacco plants are even now growing wild in 

 the neighbourhood of many old sheep-runs. These plants are not of 

 any Australian species or varieties, but evidently of American origin. 

 Especially in the northern coastal districts, from the Hunter up to 

 the Tweed, tobacco plants of American origin are to be found every- 

 where, occasionally, as at Tintinbar, Richmond River, in great pro- 

 fusion and growing luxuriantly, some plants attaining the height of 

 10 feet. 



It is not easy to identify the variety from which these wild plants 

 are derived ; having been long uncultivated, they have reverted to- 

 wards the original type of wild tobacco discovered by the Spaniards at 

 Yucatan when they raided Mexico nearly four centuries ago, but the 

 difference in soil and climate has somewhat modified their character. 



•There are four, possibly five, different tobaccos indigenous to Aus- 

 tralia, not one of which has any commercial value. Nicotiana 

 Suaveolens is a very pretty plant, having leaves of a deep green colour. 

 The flower-stalk is about 2 feet high, and bears nuinerous almost 

 pure white trumpet-shaped flowers, which, in the evenings and early 

 mornings, give out a very delicate perfume, but close up in the heat 

 and glare of midday. It is found in abundance under the shade of 

 oak trees, on the steep banks of creeks, in the upland valleys of the 

 table-land. It is very hardy ; has long, tough, running roots ; flowers 

 in October, and produces a succession of blooms for several months ; 

 it is subject to the attacks of the same insects that injure tobacco ni 

 cultivation for commercial purposes. The finest specimen of this plant 

 I have seen was growing in a lane off the main street at Guuncdali last 

 year. In some parts of Queensland it attains a much larger growth, 

 and invades the cultivation, from which it is difiicult to eradicate it. It 

 is worthy of a place in any flower-garden, and is grown in hothouses 

 in England as an ornamental plant. 



