240 PREPARATION OF THE TOBACCO. 
scale. But this, like many kindred theories, is quite a mis- 
take. In this country there exist large snuff-mills worked by 
steam power, and in Scotland there is one water-mill which 
is driven by a water-power of the strength of thirty horses. 
The grinding of snuff is at present carried on much as it was 
one hundred years ago. The apparatus, although effective, 
SNUFF-MILL A CENTURY AGO. 
is very primitive, and would lead one to suppose that mechan- 
ical ingenuity had wholly neglected to trouble itself about 
improving that branch of machinery. 
“All kinds of snuff are made from tobacco leaves, or 
tobacco stalks, either separate or mixed. This in the first 
instance goes through a kind of fermentation, and, like the 
basis of soup at the modern hotels, forms, as it were, the 
stock from which all the varieties in flavor and appearance 
are produced by special treatment and flavoring. Of course 
the strength and pungency of the snuff will depend a good 
deal upon the richness of the tobacco originally put aside for 
it. About one thousand pounds of tobacco would form an 
ordinary batch of snuff. The duty on this would amount to 
about £150, and this has to be paid before the tobacco is 
removed from the bonded warehouse. Having got his heap 
of material ready, the snuff-maker moistens it, then places it 
in a warm room and covers it over with warm cloths—coddles 
it, as it were, to make it comfortable, so that the cold air 
cannot get'to it—and the heap is then left for three or four 
weeks, as the case may be, to ferment. 
“In France, where, under the Imperial régime, snuff-making 
was a Government monopoly, the tobacco was allowed to 
ferment for twelve or eighteen months; and in the principal 
factory (that at Strasburg) might have been seen scores of 
