TOBA, tuba (opposite, so called by the Guarani, as living on the opposite or western bank of the Paraguay). A powerful and savage people of Guaycuran stock, the most important tribe of the Chaco region of Northern Argentina. They rove along the Pilcomayo and Vermejo rIVers. Their language is a dialect of that for ery of America is somewhat doubtful. Probably the habit has been long practiced in China, but it is not certain. If it was so. the custom did not extend among neighboring nations, whereas, on the introduction of the use of tobacco from America, where the Indians have smoked the leaves since remote antiquity, it rapidly extended throughout Europe, and soon became ex tensively prevalent among Oriental nations. The Indians used it. in their important transactions. Thus the calumet (q.v.) , or pipe of peace, is in dispensable to the ratification of a treaty; and smoking together has even greater significance of friendship than eating together has among the nations. Tobacco seed was first taken to Europe by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, who intro duced it into Spain, where it was first cultivated as an ornamental plant, till Nicole Ma nardes extolled it as possessed of medicinal virtues. It was introduced into Italy in 15G0. Its use as snuff soon followed its introduction for smoking. There is no reference to the use of tobacco in Shakespeare, yet it is certain from other evi dences that it then was well known in England, although, on account of its high price, its use was confined to the wealthy. It was smoked in very small pipes and the smoke was expelled, not from the mouth, but through the nostrils. Tobacco was at first recommended for medicinal virtues, but soon became an article of luxury. The Popes Urban VIII. and Innocent XL fulminated against it the thunders of the Church; the Sultans of Turkey declared smoking a crime. Sultan Amu rath IV. decreeing its punishment by the most cruel kinds of death; and King James 1. of England issued a Counterblastc to Tobacco, in which he described its use as "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fumes thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." Although the habit did not become prevalent in the East till the seventeenth century, the Turks and Persians are now the greatest smokers in the world. In India all classes and both sexes smoke; in China the practice is universal.
In America the culture of tobacco began in Vir ginia with the earliest settlement of the colony. It is recorded that in 1615 the• gardens, fields, and even the streets of Jamestown were planted with tobacco, which immediately became, not only the staple crop, but the principal currency of the colony. In 1619 "ninety agreeable per
sons, young and incorrupt," and in 1621 "sixty more maids, of virtuous education, young and handsome," were sent out from London on a mar riage speculation. The first lot of these ladies was bought by the colonists for 120 pounds of tobacco each ; the second lot brought 150 pounds each. The culture of tobacco was introduced into the Dutch colony of New York in 1646, though it never gained the same prominence there as farther south. Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia, and later Kentucky, made it the leading crop almost from their first settlement. It long constituted the most valuable export of the colonies. From 1744 to 1776 the exports of the crop averaged 40,000,000 pounds a year None of the cotton States now produce much tobacco, but one county in Florida, Gadsden„ has long been celebrated for the production of Cuban to bacco, which always brings a high price. As a commercial crop tobacco is confined to rather limited areas in a few States. In the production of wrapper leaf for cigars Florida and Connecti cut take the lead. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin produce a great deal of filler leaf for cigars. Other classes of tobacco are grown extensively in Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Mary land, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri in the order named.
The United States produces more tobacco than any other country in the world, and exports more than cue-third of the product, chiefly to Germany, England, France, Italy, Austria, and Holland, in the order named. The value of the tobacco exported in 1850 was $6,417,251, in 1899 825,467,218. The amount. received by the United States Government from the internal revenue tax on tobacco products is a large one. In 1890 it amounted to $33,949,097. The value of tobacco imported in 1899 was $9,900,253, at an average price per pound of 70.2 cents.
The product of tobacco in Europe is nearly equal to the average production of the United States. Austria-Hungary produces about one third of it, Russia one-tenth, Germany nearly as much, France about 35,000,000 pounds, and the other countries a small quantity. Europe can easily produce all the tobacco required, but American tobacco is largely imported, because it is cheap and is considered valuable for mixing with and fortifying European leaf.
ID America tobacco is divided commercially into four classes: (1) cigar; (2) cigarette; (3) manufacturing (chewing, smoking, and snuff); (4) export.