94 CIRCULAR 249, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
rise largely to the chewing-tobacco industry. Both continue to 
furnish tobacco used in the manufacture of plug, and some Burley 
is used in twist. 
Types which in this country are used almost exclusively for chewing. 
purposes are Virginia sun-cured and One Sucker, the latter having 
also an important foreign market. To some extent, too, Green 
River air-cured and the fire-cured types are used in chewing. 
Mathewson (19) gave the manufacture of long cut and fine cut as 
important uses of Green. River, fine cut being used for smoking 
and chewing. 
Table 35 shows the production of chewing tobacco in the United 
States, and since very little chewing tobacco is exported or imported, 
it represents fairly well the consumption of chewing tobacco in this 
country. There is, in addition, some consumption by chewing and 
smoking of natural leaf on or near the farm where the tobacco is 
produced. This is true not only in the important tobacco-producing 
States, but elsewhere. Tobacco-production statistics prepared and 
published by the Department of Agriculture relate to about 15 States, 
but small quantities are grown in many States by occasional farmers 
who cultivate a few rows and make twists of the leaf for home con- 
sumption and for sale to their neighbors. There is a small but 
rather flourishing parcel-post trade in natural leaf for smoking and 
chewing. The product is unsweetened and unflavored tobacco, 
which is too strong for the taste of most people. 
Snuff—Snuff, which is made chiefly of fire-cured tobacco, presents 
an anomaly in tobacco history. A century or more ago its use was 
considered one of the distinguishing marks of the gentleman, and 
gifts of jeweled snuffboxes were tokens of royal favor. Snuff-taking 
enjoyed a degree of respectability and elegance for about 200 years, 
but in more recent times the forms in which it has been used and the 
classes of users have undergone radical change. Relatively few 
people now living have seen anyone open a snuffbox and take a pinch 
of snuff into the “nostrils. In fact, a good deal of the snuff now sold 
is in paste or moist form, and is commonly used by applying between 
the gums and the cheek. A few “dip” their snuff (14) 
The use of snuff as now practiced is probably largely confined to 
laboring classes in the South, particularly Negroes, and to the Scandi- 
navian population in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Table 35, page 112, 
shows the annual production of snuff from 1880 to 1940. 
SMOKING TOBACCO 
The term ‘‘smoking tobacco’? commonly refers to pipe tobacco, 
although an indeterminate quantity of tobacco so classified is used in 
hand-rolled cigarettes. 
Most smoking tobacco is treated by the addition of various sub- 
stances which contribute to the mildness and aroma of the smoke 
and prevent too rapid drying out of the tobacco. In addition, all 
tobacco is aged for 1 or more years before it is used. The aging proc- 
ess, during which the tobacco goes through annual sweats or fermenta- 
18 It may be noted here, in connection with the flavoring of smoking tobacco and snuff, that the wild plant 
commonly known as deer’s-tongue, houndstongue, or Carolina vanilla plant (Trilisa odoratissima) has been 
an article of commerce for such purposes for at least 70 years. It isreferred to in the report of the Department 
of Agriculture for 1871 (29) which states that the leaves exhale the odor of vanilla when bruised and are used 
by tobacconists for favoring smoking tobacco. Deer’s-tongue is found in pine barrens from North Carolina 
to Florida. 
