TOBACCO: 

 ITS HISTOKY AND ASSOCIATIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE TOBACCO PLANT. 



Tobacco is a hardy flowering perennial plant, 

 growing freely in a rich moist soil, which is very neces- 

 sary to its healthy development ; but which it is said to 

 exhaust in a remarkable degree. It varies in height 

 according to species and locality; in some instances 

 growing to the altitude of fifteen feet, in others not 

 reaching more than three feet from the ground. There 

 is also a dwarf kind discovered by Houston at Vera 

 Cruz, the leaves of which grow in tufts near the 

 ground, the flowers rising from a central stem to the 

 height of eighteen inches. As many as forty varieties 

 of the Tobacco plant have been noted by botanists, 

 who class them all among the Solanacece, and narcotic 

 poisons. The Atropa Belladonna, or deadly nightshade, 

 is a member of this family ; but it may be of use to 

 the nervous to know that the common potato is in the 

 same category ; and that, though tobacco will produce 



