350 
REMARKS ON TOBACCO. 
How strange tliis valuable article should so generally be suffered to run 
to waste. There is no vegetable matter which, if properly managed, 
with the help of this liquid, may not be reduced to excellent compost. 
For want of paper, I must, Mr. Editor, conclude, and shall be glad 
to go further into the matter in your next. 
August 11 th, 1835; 
<Sir,—I n your June number for this year, Mr. Ashford requests 
information as to the cause, prevention, and cure of the spotty and 
finally mouldy state of some of the berries in bunches of grapes. I am 
not technically acquainted with the botanical terms proper to be em¬ 
ployed in my inquiries; but in my vinery, in which I have no flue, I am 
much annoyed and disappointed by the decayed and burnt appearance 
of many of the sprigs—or perhaps the proper word may be foot-stalks— 
from whence my berries proceed. They thus become red, instead of 
being black, and sour, instead of being sweet; and the whole stalk 
speedily decays, and the fruit falls. If this was general, I should attri¬ 
bute it to a bad border, too much or too little heat or air ; but it is 
partial, only affecting some bunches, while others are quite healthy. 
I also solicit from yourself, or some correspondent, the cause, preven¬ 
tion, and cure of this disease, or bad gardening. 
August 17, 1835. John Mills. 
4 • 
[]As the defect described by Mr. Mills appears to be only a partial 
failure, it is extremely difficult for us (as strangers to the general con¬ 
dition of the vines) to name the cause of this failure. We can only 
surmise whether there may not be too great a crop on the vines, or 
whether they may not be suffering from the want of moisture at the 
root, or, more probably still, from the great heat of the sun, in this 
unusually hot summer.— Ed.]] 
Historical, 'fyc. Hemarlcs on Tobacco. — There are about thirty 
species of Nicotiana , and some of these are natives, or naturalised, in 
most parts of the world ; for although its use was unknown in Europe 
before the discovery of America, indulgence in its fumes is so common, 
nay, so universal among the Chinese, and the forms of their bamboo 
pipes and their method of exhaling so peculiar, that Pallas and many 
others have been led to believe that the custom is aboriginal with them, 
and that they and other nations of the East were acquainted with its 
use before the discovery of the western hemisphere. Two or more 
species, JV. sinensis and N. fruticosa, are also believed to be natives of 
China, and N. nepalcnsis of Ilindostan. Chardin states that its use 
