936 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Pakt III. 



6121. The hauhn of buck-wheat is said to be more nourishing than clover when cut while in flower. 

 Banister says, it has a peculiar inebriating quality. He has seen hogs, after having fed heartily on it, 

 come home in such a state of intoxication as to be unable to walk without reeling. The dried haulm is 

 not eaten readily by any description of animal, and affords but very little manure. On the whole, the 

 crop is of most value when ploughed in green for the latter purpose. 



6122. As a seed crop, tlie author of The New Farmer's Calendar seems justified in 

 saying, it is only valuable on land that will grow nothing else. 



SuBSECT. 3. Tobacco. Nicotm.na. L. ; Peyitdndria Monogynia Ij,, and Solanece J. Le 

 Tabac, Fr. ; der Tabak, KjQtli T^hb6,'li^ ; Tabaco, Span. ; and Pet urn or Petume, 

 Brasil. ' ''"' *"^ '*ii^' i' '''^'"' O'- 



6123. The species cuUivated are annuals, natives of Mexico, or other parts of America, 

 and, according to some, of both hemispheres. It was brought to Europe early in the 

 sixteenth century, after the discovery of America by Columbus, probably about 1519; 

 from Portugal to France about 1560, by John Nicot, after whom the plant is named; 

 and to England, according to Lobel, about 1 570 ; according to Hume by Ralph Lane, 

 in 1586, from the island of Tobacco in the Gulf of Mexico, whence the popular name. 



6124. The custom of smoking is of unknown antiquity in Asia, Persia, and other eastern countries; 

 but whether the plant used was tobacco is very doubtful. The natives of Mexico, in the present day, not 

 only use it as an article of luxury, but as a remedy for all diseases, and, when provisions fail them, for 

 allaying the pains of hunger and thirst. The use of smoking was introduced to England by Capt. Lane, 

 who had learned the custom in Virginia, in 1586. He brought home with him several pipes and taught 

 the custom to Sir Walter Ralegh, who soon acquired a taste for it, and began to teach it to his friends. 

 He gave, we are told, " smoking parties" at his house at Islington, when the guests were treated with 

 nothing but a pipe and a mug of ale and nutmeg. {Bios.. Brit.) Down to the time of Elizabeth, it was not 

 uncommon for ladies to smoke. During the reign of James her successor, most of the princes of Europe 

 violently opposed its use. James of England wiote a book against it ; the Grand Duke of Moscow forbade 

 its entrance into his territory under pain of the knout for the first offence, and death for the next. The 

 emperor of the Turks, the king of Persia, and pope Urban VIII., issued similar prohibitions, all of which 

 were as ridiculous as those which attended the introduction of coffee, or Jesuit's bark. At present, all 

 the sovereigns of Europe, and most of those of other parts of the world, derive a considerable part of their 

 revenue from tobacco. 



6125. The cultivation of tobacco on the Continent was not attempted, except in gardens, till the beginning 

 of the seventeenth century. Under Louis XIII. and XIV., its cultivation was allowed in certain pro- 

 vinces of France ; and about the same time it was introduced as an article of cottage or spade culture, in 

 Holland, Germany, and part of Sweden. It also spread into Switzerland and Italy, and to various coun- 

 tries of the East. It is at present cultivated in almost every country of the world, but for commercial 

 purposes chiefly on the Continent and islands of North America, and more especially in Virginia, Cuba, 

 and St Domingo. In no other parts of the world is it so well manufactured for the purpose of smoking 

 as in Havanna. 



6126. Tn England the practice of planting and growing tobacco began to creep in in the time of 

 Charles II. ; and an act was passed fixing a penalty of 10/. for every rood of land so cultivated, but making 

 it lawful, however, to grow small quantities, not exceeding half a pole, " in a physic or university garden, 

 or in any private garden for physic or chirurgery." This act and others were confirmed by different acts 

 during the reign of Geo. III. Notwithstanding this act, however, tobacco was much cultivated a few- 

 years prior to 1782, in the vales of York and Ryedale. In the latter district it did not excite the notice of 

 regal authority; and was cured and manufactured by a man who had formerly been employed upon the 

 tobacco plantations in America ; who not only cured it properly, but gave it the proper cut, and finally 

 prepared it for the pipe. But in the vale of York the cultivators of it met with less favourable circum- 

 stances. Their tobacco was publicly burnt, and themselves severely fined and imprisoned. Penalties, it 

 was said, were paid to the amonnt of 30,000/. This was enough to put a stop to the illegal cultivation of 

 tobacco. But, perhaps rather unfortunately, it has likewise put a stop to the cultivation of that limited 

 quantity of half a rood, which the law allows to be planted for the purpose of physic and chirurgery, or 

 destroying insects. 



6127. In Scotland, about the same time, tobacco was cultivated in various parts, more especially in the 

 neighbourhood of Kelso and Jedburgh. Its produce was so great, that thirteen acres at Crailing fetched 

 104/., at the low rate of 4rf. per lb. (being 480 lbs. per acre), and would have brought more than three times 

 as much, had not an act of parliament obliged the cultivator to dispose of it to government at that price. 

 {County Reports.) 



6128. In Ireland, tobacco was introduced into the county of Cork, with the potato, by Sir Walter 

 Ralegh ; but the culture of the former does not appear to have made much progress, though, according 

 to Humboldt, it preceded that of the potato in Europe more than one hundred and twenty years, having 

 been extensively cultivated in Portugal at the time that Sir Walter Ralegh brought it from Virginia to 

 England in 1586. A writer in 1725, quoted by Brodigan, says, I liave not heard that a rood of tobacco was 

 ever planted in this kingdom. An act of George HI. repealed several preceding acts, that prohibited the 

 growth and produce of tobacco in Ireland; and this is the foundation on which Ireland now rests her 

 claim to that branch of culture. Until the year 1828, Brodigan observes, the culture was limited ; but in 

 that year there were one hundred and thirty acres under tobacco; and in 1829, one thousand acres in 

 Wexford alone. " It has been partially cultivated in the adjoining counties of Carlow, Waterford, and 

 Kilkenny, and in other places. In the province of Connaught an experiment was made in the vicinity of 

 Westport. It has been grown in one or two instances near Dublin ; in the northern section of the king- 

 dom two or three trials have taken place on a small scale;" and Mr. Brodigan, the author of the treatise 

 from which we quote, has cultivated several acres in the neighbourhood of X)rogheda, preparing the soil 

 by horse labour as for turnips. 



6129. The restrictive system will probably, at no distant time, be removed from tobacco, and from every 

 other crop ; but that tobacco ever will enter into the general course of crops of the British farmer, we do 

 not think likely; because, when trade in this, as in every thing else, is once made free, the tobacco of 

 warmer climates will unquestionably be preferred to that of the British isles. At present there is a 

 number of gentlemen in the House of Commons who use tobacco ; but should its use become unfashion- 

 able among the higher classes, we should not be surprised to see an attempt made to lay such a tax on the 

 foreign commodity as would give the landed interest a monopoly of an inferior article, which would thus 

 be forced by the rich on the poor. We trust, however, to the growing political sense of the country, to the 

 force of opinion, in short, to the press, to avert such an evil. In the mean time, we ardently desire to see 

 the culture of tobacco permitted and successfully attempted in Ireland, in order to aid in employing the 

 population of that country ; and we should wish also to see every cottager in the three kingdoms growing 

 his half rood, which the law permits, and which, at a moderate calculation, ought to produce 4 lbs. of 

 tobacco for his own smoking or snuff, or for selling to his neighbours. For this purpose we shall enter 

 into the culture of tobacco at greater length than might otherwise be advisable. 



