EARLY HISTORY OF TOBACCO. 479 
from their colonies the price gradually fell while the demand 
and consumption for it increased in proportion to the falling 
off of prices. From the island of Trinidad, Europe received its 
finest tobacco, and it continued to maintain its reputation as 
such until that variety known as Varinas tobacco from South 
America appeared ; this variety attracted the attention of 
European buyers and consumers, from its superiority in 
flavor and appearance which it has maintained for more 
than two hundred and fifty years. 
In South America, the cultivation of tobacco took its rise 
in Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia. The varieties there 
produced had acquired an established reputation as early as 
1600, together with St. Lucia, Philippine and Margarita 
tobaccos. Early in the Seventeenth Century, the Dutch 
became the great producers and importers into Europe, and 
the growths of their colonies continued to furnish a large 
proportion of the quantity used until English colonial tobacco 
made its appearance from Virginia. 
The Plymouth and London companies from its first appear- 
ance in their markets, saw its vast importance as an article 
of agriculture and commerce, and in twenty years afterthe first 
planting of it, began to reap rich returns from its sale and pro- 
duction. From this time forward, not only in America, but 
in Europe and Asia, its cultivation spread among other 
nations until at length it has become one of the great sources 
of revenue of almost every country, and a leading product of 
nearly every clime. The islands of St. Domingo, Trinidad, St. 
Iucia and Martinique, do not produce as large quantities of 
tobacco as formerly ; its cultivation in the West Indies being 
now confined chiefly to the island of Cuba. 
This island produces at the present time the finest cigar 
leaf of the West Indies, which is considered by many as the 
best grown. The value of the: annual product of Cuba is 
estimated at $20,000,000, nearly as much as that of the entire 
United States. Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Paraguay, 
which are the tobacco-producing countries of South America, 
furnish Europe with a large amount of leaf tobacco. In 
