NICOTIANA TABACUM. 
avidity ; it is with them one of the most useful articles of barter, and 
indeed we scarcely know a people among whom tobacco has been 
once intioduced, who have not ever after had a desire for it. It has 
now become a most important article of commerce to Europe and 
America, and by the imposition of heavy duties on the importation, 
a considerable source of revenue to England and other stales ; an 
event which certainly was not contemplated by the governments of 
those countries when they sought to discourage the use of it. 
We are not certain of the precise period when the tobacco plant was 
first introduced into England,* but we know that it was very exten- 
sively cultivated, particularly in the northern counties, until the rising 
importance of our American colonies induced the legislature to pass 
an act, commonly known by the name of the Virginia Act, by which 
the home cultivation was interdicted, with a view of encouraging 
what was then the most important branch of American commerce. 
After the loss of these colonies, heavy duties were imposed on the 
importation of tobacco, and by the increased consumption, these 
duties became such an important branch of the revenue, that the 
prohibition to home cultivation was continued. Holland is the 
country in Europe where tobacco is now most extensively grown, 
and it is not a little remarkable, that this plant seems to flourish 
equally wherever it is planted, and to have in a manner neither 
country or climate peculiarly its own. The best imported tobacco is 
from the state of Virginia, in North America ; but whether its greater 
excellenqe is attributable to the soil, the climate, better cultivation, 
an improved method of preparing it for market, or lastly, to a better 
species or variety being indigenous to that territory, we must confess 
ourselves ignorant. 
Botanical Description. The root of tobacco is fibrous, 
branchy, white, and of a strong acrid taste; the stalk rises from four 
to five feet high, is strong, cylindrical, about the thickness of the 
thumb, shghtly hairy, and full of marrow ; the leaves are large, oval, 
lauceolated, sessile, and even prolonged upon the stock on each 
side of their insertion, particularly the lower ones ; their summit is 
acute, edges slightly undulated, surface hairy, ribs large, and very 
apparent; colour of a yellowish green; the flowers grow in a 
pannicle, at the extremity of the branches ; calyx monophyllous, in 
the shape of a cup, cut into five segments, acute, and slightly hairy ; 
corolla monopetalous, funnel-shaped ; tube of the corolla, of a pale 
green, expanding into a limb, the colour of which varies from purple 
* It appears from Lobel, that this plant was cultivated in Britain previously to the 
year 1570. 
