188 DESCRIPTIVE BOTANY. 



importaut crop in Holland, Flanders, France, Alsace, Hungary, and European 

 Turkey. 



Tobacco of a good marketable quality is raised in the Levant. Large quan- 

 tities of an excellent quality are produced in the Indian Archipelago, in China, 

 and Japan. The Dutch introduced its cultivation into south Africa, and the 

 English have recently commenced its culture in Australia. The quality of 

 that raised north of the middle of the temperate zones, as in Europe, is not 

 so good. 



Etymoloqij. — Nicotlana, the generic name, was given to this plant in honor 

 of John Nicot, a French statesman, who was instrumental in bringing it under 

 cultivation in France. Tabacum is derived by some from tabaco, the name 

 used by the American aborigines to indicate the instrument or pipe they used 

 to smoke the dried leaves of the plant. Others derive it from Tobago, in the 

 West Indies, others from Tabasco, in Mexico. The common name tobacco 

 is derived from the same source. The other specific names explain them- 

 selves ; as, rustica, of the field or the country ; macrophylla, large-leaved, 

 or long-leaved ; Perslca, grown in Persia ; repanda, wavy, or sinuate-leaved ; 

 quadrivalvis, seed-vessel with four valves ; nana, small, or dwarf. 



History. — Soon after the permanent settlement of North America, learned 

 societies and some of the sovereigns of Europe became interested in the 

 natural history of the New World. They sent over men devoted to the study of 

 nature to collect specimens of the animals and other objects of interest to ])e 

 found in Virginia, the name applied at that time to the large tract of land 

 claimed by the English. Among the naturalists sent out were enthusiastic 

 botanists, who made large collections of plants and seeds, and conveyed them 

 to the Old World. 



In their explorations they found a plant, the dried leaves of which the 

 aborigines smoked in an instrument called by them tabaco. The imperfect 

 knowledge of the dialect of the sa^-ages possessed by the Europeans at that 

 time led to the error that the substance they smoked was called tabaco, 

 instead of the pipe through which they smoked it. Another history of the 

 origin of the name is that a Spanish monk found the plant growing in 

 Tobago, a province of St. Domingo. 



It was introduced into Portugal in 1558, by Dr Fernandes, and thence into 

 Spain in 1559, where it was grown as a medicinal plant. John Nicot, a French 

 statesman, who was at that time minister to the court of Portugal, sent seed 

 to Queen Catherine de Medicis, who caused it to be cultivated in France ; and 

 on account of the interest she took in its culture, it received the name of 

 Queen's Herb. On account of the instrumentality of John Nicot in its intro- 

 duction into France, Tournefort, a French botanist, named it Nicotiana. 



Ralph Lane, the first governor of Virginia, and Sir Francis Drake In-ought 

 to England in 1586 the implements and material for tobacco smoking, which 

 they handed over to Sir Walter Raleigh. Lane is credited with having been 

 the first p]nglish smoker; and through the influence and example of the illus- 

 trious Raleigh, the habit of smoking soon became rooted among the English. 

 The custom was carried into Holland by young Englishmen who went there 

 to prosecute their studies. 



In less than fifty years after the tobacco-plant was fir.st cultivated in Portu 

 gal the custom of smoking it spread over Turkey, Persia, India, Java, China, 

 and Japan. This rapid spread is no doubt due in part to the ease with which 

 the plant is cultivated throughout the temperate zones where rich soil Ls 

 found. 



