THE SUB-TROPICAL ZONE. 141 



issued similar prohibitions. A hundred volumes 

 were written against it, and even king James i. 

 took up his pen to suppress it. He styles it, 

 " a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the 

 nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the 

 lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof 

 most nearly resembling the horrible Stygian 

 smoke of the pit that is bottomless." Notwith- 

 standing all this opposition, however, smoking 

 has spread not only among civilized but savage 

 nations ; and now, probably, there is no 

 single product of the vegetable kingdom so 

 universally used. The cultivation of tobacco 

 for commerce is chiefly carried on from 23 to 

 40 N. lat., and mainly in Virginia and Mary- 

 land. It might be successfully cultivated in 

 England, but this is prohibited in order to 

 encourage our American trade. The importa- 

 tion into this country in 1848 was 34,481,798 

 pounds of manufactured tobacco, and 1.504,673 

 pounds of cigars and snuff. The high rate of 

 duty upon them, 3s, per pound, is, however, a 

 great temptation to smuggling, and it has been 

 calculated that one-fourth of the quantity con- 

 sumed in Britain, and three - fourths of that 

 used in Ireland are contraband. This is, pro- 

 bably, an over estimate of the present state of 

 the trade. 



From Mexico we have received the splendid 

 dahlia, brought here by lady Holland in 1804 ; 

 but its splendour, as cultivated in our gardens, 

 far exceeds that of the wild plant, the latter 

 having only a single flower of a reddish colour, 



