Tobacco

a narcotic plant, the leaves of which are used for smoking, chewing, and as snuff. Columbus, Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other early discoverers found it in use among the American Indians who smoked the leaves, not only socially and individually, but in the ceremonial pipe of peace and around their council fires. The practice was introduced into Europe and became general in spite of determined opposition in high quarters. Pope Urban VIII went to the length of excommunicating tobacco users, and no less a personage than King James I issued a "counterblast" against the weed. Tobacco was the first crop to bring money to the settlers of the New World. The prospect of tobacco shipments played an important part in colonization. The principal business of Maryland and Virginia with the mother country, from the purchase of a harpsichord or a wife to a roll of cloth or an implement, was transacted in terms of tobacco and payment was made in tobacco. The Southern colonial planter packed his tobacco in hogsheads. A hogshead was laid on its side, fitted with a pair of shafts, and trundled off like a farm roller to the nearest river landing. At the close of the American Revolution, the new states were able to ship 118,460 hogsheads of tobacco leaf in a single year, 1790.

Over 100,000 American farmers raise tobacco as a chief crop. Leaf tobacco brings prices varying from two cents to two dollars a pound, according to kind and quality, the latter price being for wrapper leaves of a quality difficult to obtain. Tobacco is everywhere an annual. It grows shoulder high, with broad, ovate, oily, heavy-scented leaves, arranged on a strong stem. The large leaves near the ground attain a length of eighteen inches and a width of six. Its culture is not very different from that of cabbages. A dry, warm, deep, rich, sandy soil is best. Like the grape, tobacco is sensitive to soil and surroundings. The plants are started from seed in a specially prepared and sheltered plot. They are transplanted to the field later on and are worked like corn. Imperfect leaves are removed. The top is cut off that the strength of the plant may center in eight or ten of the lower leaves. As the leaves approach maturity, they are cured by undergoing a sweating process and are baled for market.

Prior to the Civil War Virginia led the Union in the production of tobacco, and Richmond is still a large tobacco center. Named in order of amount produced, the leading ten states are now Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, and Connecticut. The United States is now the chief tobacco-producing and consuming country of the world. The yield reported for the year of the last census reached the enormous total of 863,163,275 pounds, of which Kentucky and the territory tributary to Frankfort and Cincinnati raised a half, Virginia and the Carolinas nearly one-third, and the rest of the Union the remainder. The Connecticut Valley raises a tobacco celebrated for cigar wrappers. A section of Wisconsin raises tobacco profitably. The wornout fields of North Carolina have sprung into notice as producers of a certain variety of mild tobacco. Lands supposed to be of little value yield large returns. A small green variety is raised quite generally in the Northern States for private consumption as smoking tobacco. It has little or no commercial value.

Mexico is a large producer of tobacco. Cuban tobacco is noted for its flavor and is much used in the manufacture of cigars. The entire Caribbean region produces luxuriant tobacco. The Manila product has a wide reputation. Tobacco raising has spread rapidly in Europe. Turkish tobacco is celebrated. Hungary raises a large amount. The United States imports some of the more expensive grades of tobacco, especially Sumatra leaves for cigar wrappers and fillers, but our exports of leaf tobacco, chiefly to Canada and the countries of Western Europe from Gibraltar to Hammerfest, amount to 300,000,000 pounds, a full third of the annual crop. Tobacco is a source of national wealth. Large value in tobacco leaf is easily transported at so little expense that tobacco manufacturing is not confined to tobacco-raising districts.

The growth of the tobacco industry has been rapid. The Indians raised small patches practically everywhere east of the great plains. In 1612 John Rolfe cultivated tobacco in his garden at Jamestown. In 1618 the colony produced 20,000 pounds. The American production in 1621 was 60,000 pounds; in 1640, 1,300,000 pounds; in 1680, 25,000,000 pounds; in 1770, 107, 391,000 pounds; in 1776, 2,440,947 pounds; in 1839, 219,000,000 pounds; in 1859, 434,000,000 pounds; in 1862, 163,000,000 pounds; and in 1900, 814,000,000 pounds. The American production of tobacco, according to the Year Book for 1908 was:

United States . . . . . 875,425 718,061,380

It is difficult to get accurate statistics owing to the consumption on the farm. Some countries, as China and Persia, have no system of gathering statistics. The following figures for the crop of 1907 are offered by the United States Department of Agriculture:

Total . . . . . 2,333,107,000

In some years the world produces 3,000,000,000 pounds of tobacco. The United States, Cuba, Mexico, Turkey, Egypt, the Philippines, the Transvaal, and the Dutch East Indies, are the exporting countries; Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany are the heavy buyers. The sale of tobacco is a government monopoly in France, Italy, Spain, and Austria-Hungary. The habit of using tobacco may be regarded as well-nigh universal.

The per capita consumption of tobacco in the different countries varies, as may be seen from the following table, showing the total and per capita consumption in the principal countries during the most recent available year:

See Pipe; Cigar; France; Nicotine; Narcotics; Opium; Betel; Hashish