44 VARIETY OF KINDS. 
“Here is great store of tobacco, which the salvages call 
apooke: howbeit it is not of the best kynd, it 1s but poor and 
weake, and of a byting taste; it grows not fully a yard 
above ground, bearing a little yellow flower like to henbane ; 
the leaves are short and thick, somewhat round at the upper 
end; whereas the best tobacco of Trynidado and the Oro- 
noque, is large, sharpe, and growing two or three yardes 
from the ground, bearing a flower of the breadth of our bell- 
flower, in England; the salvages here dry the leaves of this 
apooke over the fier, and sometymes in the sun, and crumble 
yt into poudre, stalk, leaves, and all, taking the same in 
pipes of earth, which very ingeniously they can make.” 
ap It would seem then, if the 
account given by Strachey 
be correct, that the tobacco 
cultivated by the Indians 
of North America was of 
4 inferior growth and quality 
to that grown in many por- 
tions of South America, and 
more particularly in the 
West India islands. As 
there are still many varie- 
== ties of the plant grown in 
SHE CONTRAST: America, so there doubtless 
was when cultivated by the Indians. While most probably 
the quality of leaf remained the same from generation to 
generation, still in some portions of America, owing more to 
the soil and climate than the mode of cultivating by them, 
they cured very good tobacco. We can readily see how this 
might have been, from numerous experiments made with 
both American and European varieties. Nearly all of the 
early Spanish, French and English voyagers who landed in 
America were attracted by the beauty of the country. Ponce 
De Leon, who sailed from Spain to the Floridas, was charmed 
by the plants and flowers, and doubtless the first sight of 
them strengthened his belief in the existence somewhere in: 
this tropical region of the fountain of youth. 
The discovery of tobacco proved of the greatest advantage 
