CHAPTER X 



TOBACCO. Nicotiana Tabacum 



THE plant producing the leaves from which tobacco is pre- Habitat, 

 pared by a process of drying and fermentation, is a native 

 of tropical America, where its use was discovered by Colum- 

 bus in the year 1492. It is related that when Columbus 

 and his followers landed in Cuba they found the natives 

 accustomed to smoke tobacco leaves rolled up into some- 

 thing like the form now familiar to us as a cigar, and the 

 Spanish explorers on their return to Spain introduced the 

 : ' weed " into that country. It was not until nearly a century Tobacco 

 afterwards, namely in 1585, that the celebrated Sir Walter {n!Engiand 

 Raleigh carried the custom of smoking tobacco into Eng- ^X ? ir 

 land. At first it met with much opposition from kings, Raleigh, 

 popes, and other potentates. King James the First wrote a its use at 

 book against tobacco smoking, under the title of " A Counter- bidden! 

 blast to Tobacco," and Eastern princes sentenced smokers 

 to cruel deaths. But, in spite of all this, the custom spread its use now 

 rapidly in every part of the civilized world, and it may now 

 be considered to be universal. Of all the varied vegetable 

 productions of the earth, tobacco is said by one authority to 

 be the ''most universally used by mankind," and another 

 writer states that the plant " forms one of the most import- 

 " ant factors of national wealth in the countries where it is 

 " largely and efficiently cultivated." 



When the West Indian Islands were first colonized by 

 Europeans, tobacco became an important cultivation in 



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