TOBACCO. 



899 



them as hard as possible. When the bag is filled, 

 and the hops packed in so hard as that it will 

 hold no more, it is drawn up, unloosed from 

 the hoop, and the end sewed up, other two 

 handles having been previously fonned in the 

 corners, in the manner already mentioned. The 

 brightest and finest coloured hops are put into 

 pockets, or fine bagging, and the brown into 

 coarse or heavy bagging. The former are chiefly 

 used for making fine ales, and the latter by the 

 porter brewers. But when hops are intended to 

 be kept two or three years, they are put into bags 

 of strong cloth, and firmly pressed so as to ex- 

 clude the air. 



The stripping and sacking of the poles suc- 

 ceeds to the operation of picking. The shoots 

 or bind being stripped ofi^ such poles as are not 

 decayed, are set up together in a conical pile of 

 three or four hundred, the centre of which is 

 formed by three stout poles bound together a 

 few feet from the top, and their lower ends 

 spread out. 



The hop crop is liable to great variation, and 

 to many casualties. In a good season an acre 

 will produce twenty cwt.; in a bad season only 

 two or three cwt., and sometimes none. From 

 ten to twelve cwt. is reckoned an average crop. 

 The quality is estimated by the abundance or 

 scarcity of an unctuous clammy powder which 

 adheres to them, and by ■ their bright yellow 

 colour. 



The expenses of forming a hop plantation are 

 very great ; but once in bearing, it will continue 

 so for ten or fifteen years before it requires to 

 be renewed. The hop culture in England, like 

 that of the vine in France, is only fitted for cul- 

 tivators of considei-able capital, who can retain 

 the produce from years of abundance to those of 

 scarcity. It is calculated on an average, that the 

 hop crop fails almost entirely every fifth year, 

 when the price wiU rise from £2 to £30 per cwt. 

 The hop is peculiarly liable to diseases. When 

 young it is devoured by flies of different kinds ; 

 at a more advanced stage it is attacked by the 

 green fly, red spider, and ottor moth, the larvse 

 of which prey on every part, even to the roots. 

 The honey dew often injures the plants, as also 

 other kinds of blight. 



The use of hops in beer is to prevent it becom- 

 ing sour, and to assist in its clarification. This 

 it does both by its aromatic and narcotic prin- 

 ciple, as well as by its astringent effects on the 

 mucilage of the wort. 



It is used in medicine. A decoction of the 

 roots are sodorific, and of the flowers anodyne. 

 A pillow case stuffed with fresh hops will pro- 

 cure sleep in some affections of the brain when 

 other anodynes fail. 



■ The stalk and leaves dye wool yellow; and the 

 fibrous part of the stalks has been manufactured 

 into a stron? cloth. 



Tobacco (nicotiana tabacuinj. Nat. fam. so- 

 lanem; pentandria, mcnogyma, Linnaeus. This 



Tobacco. 



celebrated plant may properly find a place among 

 those other narcotics which habit has rendered 

 almost essential to man. The generic name nico- 

 tiana is derived fi-om John Nicot of Nismes, in 

 Languedoc, ambassador from the king of France 

 to Portugal, who procured the seeds from a 

 Dutchman, who had obtained them fi'om Flo- 

 rida. The first plant was said to have been pre- 

 sented to Catherine de Medicis, whence the 

 French name herhe b, la reine. The common 

 name tobacco is the appellation of a district in 

 Mexico. 



The root is annual, large, long, and fibrous ; 

 the stalk is erect, strong, round, hairy, branched 

 towards the top, and rises five or six feet in 

 height ; the leaves are numerous, large, oblong, 

 pointed, entire, veined, viscous, of a pale green 

 colour, without footstalks, and follow the stem 

 downwards; the bractese are long, linear, and 

 pointed; the flowers terminate the stem and 

 branches in loose clusters or panicles; the co- 

 rolla is monopetalous, funnel-shaped, with a long 

 hairy tube, which gradually swells towards the 

 limb, where it divides into five folding acute 

 segments of a reddish colour ; the calyx is hairy, 

 about half the length of the coroUa, and is cut 

 into five naiTow segments; the five filaments are 

 bent inwards, tapering, and crowned with ob- 

 long antherae ; the germen is oval, and supports 

 a long slender style, terminated by a round cleft 

 stigma; the capsule is oval, and divided into 

 two cells, which contain many small roundish 

 seeds. It is indigenous to America, and flowers 

 in July and August. 



There are upwards of twelve species of this 

 genus ; but the kinds cultivated are the n. tala- 

 cum, and n. rmtica, of which the first is greatly 

 preferred. The taste and even odour of this nar- 



