IN EXTRA-TROPICAL COUNTRIES. 199 



cerned > and, again, various climatic conditions will greatly affect 

 the tobacco plant in this respect. We can thus not hope to 

 produce, for instance, Manilla or Havannah tobacco in colder 

 latitudes ; but we may expect to produce good sorts of our 

 own, more or less peculiar ; or we may aspire to producing in 

 our rich and frostless forest valleys a tobacco similar to that 

 of Kentucky, Maryland, Connecticut, and Virginia. Frost 

 is detrimental to the tobacco plant; not only, particularly 

 when young, must it be guarded against it, but frost will also 

 injure the ripe crop. Mr. Politz considers the scarcity of dew 

 in some of the districts of Victoria to militate against the 

 production of the best kinds, otherwise the yield as a rule 

 is large, and the soil in many places well adapted for this 

 culture. Leaves of large size are frequently obtained. The 

 moister and warmer northern and eastern regions of that 

 colony are likely to produce the best tobacco, if the final 

 preparation of the leaf for the manufacturer is effected by 

 experienced skill. The cruder kinds are obtained with ease, 

 and so are leaves for covering cigars. Virgin soil, with rich 

 loam, is the best for tobacco culture, and such soil should also 

 contain a fair proportion of lime and potash, or should be 

 enriched with a calcareous manure and ashes, or with well- 

 decomposed stable manure. The seedlings, two months or 

 less old, are transplanted. When the plants are coming into 

 flower, the leading top-shoots are nipped off, and the young 

 shoots must also be broken off. A few weeks afterwards the 

 leaves will turn to a greenish yellow, which is a sign that the 

 plants are fit to be cut, or that the ripe leaves can gradually 

 be pulled. In the former case the stems are split ; the drying 

 is then effected in barns by suspension from sticks across 

 beams. The drying process occupies four or five weeks, and 

 may need to be assisted by artificial heat. Stripped of the 

 stalks, the leaf-blades are then tied into bundles to undergo 

 sweating, or a kind of slight fermentation. It does not 

 answer to continue tobacco culture beyond two years on the 

 same soil uninterruptedly. A prominent variety is Nico- 

 tiana latissima (Miller) or N. macrophylla (Lehm), yielding 

 largely the Chinese, the Orinoco, and the Maryland tobacco. 

 Latakia tobacco, according to Dyer, is prepared by sub- 

 mitting the leaves for several months to fumigation from 

 fir wood. Substances containing cumarin, particularly the 

 Tonguin Bean (Dipterix odorata), are used to flavour tobacco 

 and snuff. The dangerously powerful nicotin, a volatile acrid 

 alkaline oily liquid, and nicotianin, a bitter aromatic lamellar 

 substance, are both derived from tobacco in all its parts, and 

 are therapeutic agents. 



