Smoke Statistics 215 



leaf a year, 40,000,000 pounds of which are exported 

 and the rest manufactured in Havana. 



About 500,000,000 pounds of tobacco are grown 

 in Europe annually. In Austria-Hungary 150,000 

 acres are devoted to the plant, 50,000 in Germany, 

 32,000 in France, and 12,000 in Italy. Tobacco 

 is an important branch of agriculture in Holland. 

 Last year England imported ;^372,ooo worth of 

 Dutch tobacco. To learn that tobacco is largely 

 grown in Russia is surprising ; 128,000 acres are 

 under cultivation, yielding 140,000,000 pounds of 

 leaf a year, valued at ;^30o,ooo. In the East Indies 

 about 500,000,000 pounds of tobacco form the annual 

 harvest. The export from Natal and Africa generally 

 is trifling. 



Every year the cloud of incense offered to Diva 

 Nicotia grows greater and greater, exceeding in 

 increase the population of the world. In 1859 the 

 Statistical Journal estimated that the world smoked 

 1,950,000,000 pounds of tobacco annually, or 70 ounces 

 per head of the population. This, remembering 

 the universal practice in the East, where women 

 and children smoke as well as men, is by no means 

 an extravagant estimate. At the low price of 2d. 

 a pound the world's tobacco cost ;^36,462,ooo a year. 

 On the same basis the world now consumes 

 6,300,000,000 pounds, or 2,812,560 tons of tobacco a 

 year, worth ;^5 2,000,000 sterling. 



In 1 891, the last year for which general figures can 

 be obtained, the consumption of tobacco in Europe 

 averaged 2\ pounds per head of the population. If 

 the smokers be taken as forming 30 per cent, of 



