DUTCH PLANTERS. 355 
good size—larger than most of the tobacco of Eur 
tobacco field in Holland compares favorably with aa 
country. The color of the plants while growing, is a dark 
rich green, and they are of a uniform size, maturing slowly 
but thoroughly. Connor says of Amersfoot tobacco: “ This 
tobacco is much esteemed, the fineness of the leaf and its 
freedom from fibres fitting it for cigar-wrappers.” 
The Dutch planters of tobacco are among the happiest 
cultivators of the plant in Europe, if not in the world, and 
unlike the renowned Van Twiller never “have any doubts 
about the matter,’ and believe that tobacco is absolutely 
necessary to sustain life. After the evening meal the planter 
lights his pipe or calls upon the good dominie, to have a 
DUTCH PLANTERS. 
social chat, discoursing over their favorite beverage the 
virtues of two great luxuries. Oftener, however, he passes 
his evenings at the village inn, where, surrounded by other 
comrades, he discourses as follows of his favorite plant,— 
tabak : 
“That the smoking of tobacco is of infinite benefit, no one 
who is impartial and unprejudiced can deny. In a country 
like Holland, where the atmosphere is always laden with 
