Tobacco. 303 



timber of the young trees will answer for a variety of uses. The 

 seed of this tree we have now in such abundance as to render a few 

 hundred plants, in the hundred biggahs, of little or no importance ; 

 and if the ground on which they are planted is not of the best sort, 

 the more necessity there is for planting close." 



[Pantolog. Roxburgh. Trans. Arts, Commerce, Sfc, 



SECTION XI. 



Tobacco i 

 Nicotiana Tabacum. Link. 



This well known plant was first imported into Europe about 

 the middle of the sixteenth century, by Hernandez de Toledo, who 

 sent it to Spain and Portugal, at which time M. Nicot was resid- 

 ing at the court of Lisbon, as ambassador from Francis II. ; in 

 Consequence of which he carried the tobacco plant with him into 

 France, in 1 560, and presented it to Catharine de Medicis, as a 

 production of the new world. From the name of the Ambassador 

 it was called Nicotiana. It appears from Lobel, that this plant 

 was cultivated in Britain previous to the year 1570 ; and the intro- 

 duction of the custom of smoking it in England is ascribed to Sir 

 Walter Raleigh. The cultivation of tobacco is now common to 

 various parts of the globe ; and though prohibited by the laws of 

 this country, still the manufacture of it forms no inconsiderable 

 branch of commerce. The vulgar name of tobacco it has obtained 

 from Tobaco, a province of Yucatan, in South America, where it 

 was first discovered. 



There are two varieties of that species of nicotiana which is 

 cultivated for common use ; and which are distinguished by the 

 names of Oronokoe, and sweet-scented tobacco. They differ 

 from each other in the figure of their leaves ; those of the former 

 being longer and narrower than the latter. They are tall herba- 

 ceous plants, growing erect, with fine foliage, and raising with a 

 strong stem from six to nine feet high. The stalk, near the root, 

 is upward of an inch diameter, and surrounded with a kind of 

 hairy or velvet clammy substance, of a yellowish-green colour. 

 The leaves are rather of a deeper green, and grow alternately at 

 the distance of two or three inches from each other. They are 

 oblong, of a spear-shaped oval, and simple; the largest about 



