TOBACCO. Tobacco was the name used by the Caribbees for the pipe with which they smoked, but was transferred by the Spaniards to the herb itself. The genus Nicotiana con tains about 40 species, most of them yielding tobacco for smoking, and many of them cul tivated in the gardens of Europe.
The cultivation of tobacco is most exten sively carried on in the United States of North America. It requires considerable heat to bring it to perfection ; but with care and at tention, and by treating it as an exotic, it may be very successfully cultivated in much colder climates. In Holland, of which the climate differs little from that of Great Britain, the tobacco-plant is cultivated to a very great ex tent., even in very poor soils, by great atten tion to manuring, and by accelerating the growth of the plant.
The seed is sown in a well prepared seed bed in March, and protected by mats laid over hoops as long as the nights are cold and feast is dreaded. The ground in which the tobacco is to be transplanted is laid in narrow beds with intervals between them ; the plants are taken up carefully with a trowel ; they are placed slanting in a shallow basket, and are thus carried to the prepared beds. They are inserted into holes made by a proper in strument, so that the fibres of the roots and the adhering earth may be completely buried up to the bottom of the stem. When the leaves acquire a certain also the lower leaves are pinched off. A few plants are left for seed, and of these the heads are allowed to shoot the full length. Tobacco takes about four months from the time of planting to come to perfection. As soon as the colour of the leaves becomes of a paler green inclined to yellow, they are fit to be gathered, The plants are cut down close to the ground, and are then carefully and gradually dried. When the plants are quite dry, they are removed in moist or foggy weather ; for if the air is very dry the leaves would crumble. They are laid in heaps on hurdles and covered over, that they may sweat again, and are examined from time to time to see that they do not heat too much ; and, according to the season and whether the plants aro more or less filled with sap, they remain so a week or a fortnight. If the leaves were not stripped off at first, which is not the most common practice, they are taken off now and sorted; those which grow on the top of the stem, in the middle, and at the bottom, are laid separately, as being of different qualities. They are tied together in bundles of ten or twelve leaves, and again dried carefully, when they are ranged in casks horizontally, and pressed in by means of a lever or screw.
Tobacco is packed in hogsheads for ship ment: it is done with the greatest care; and the pressure applied is so great, that a hogs • head 48 inches in length, and 30 or 32 inches in diameter, will contain one thousand pounds weight. Upon the arrival of the tobacco in this country, it is conveyed to bonding-ware houses, examined, charged with duty, and sold to the manufacturers.
The manufacture of the tobaeco-leaveg into the numerous varieties of tobacco for smoking in pipes is commenced by loosening and opening the bundles, and sprinkling the leaves with water. The stalks are then stripped from the leaves ; this is effected by women or boys, who fold the leaf along the middle, and, by means of a small instrument, separate the stalks from the leaves, and lay them aside in different heaps. To prepare them for being cut into shreds, the leaves are pressed together in large numbers. When removed from the press to the cutting-engine, the cake of leaves is as hard as a board ; yet it retains a slight degree of clamminess or moisture from the leaves having been pre viously sprinkled. In cutting the tobacco, the cake of leaves is laid upon an iron bed, which is susceptible of a slow progressive motion by means of a screw which passes beneath it, and is connected with a cog-wheel in such a manner that, while the machine Is moving, the had is constantly urged forward. Another part of the mechanism gives motion to the knife, which has a sharp blade, rather longer than the width of the cake, and is pivoted on a hinge or fulcrum at one end, the other rising and falling with the action of the machinery.
The kind called pig-tail tobacco is produced by a process similar to spinning, and requires the simultaneous aid of a man and two boys. A bench several yards in length is made use of, with a spinning-wheel at one end, turned by one of the boys. The other boy arranges a number of damp leaves, with the stalks re moved, end to end upon the bench, taking care to lay them smooth and open ; and the man immediately follows him, and rolls up the leaves into the form of a cord by a pecu liar motion of his hand. As fast as this is done, the finished tail is wound upon the spinning-wheel. It is transferred from the spinning-wheel, by the action of the ma chinery, to a frame connected with it ; and subsequently it is wound or twisted up into a hard close ball.
Other forms into which the plant is manu factured are noticed under CIGAR and SNUFF.
Trade.—For the following years the con sumption of tobacco, and the duty thereon, Consumption. Duty per lb.
1801. —.10,514,998 lbs....1s. 7d.
1811....14,923,243 ....2s. 2d.
1821. —.12,983,198 ....4s.
1831. —15,350,018 ....3s.
1841.. —16,000,000 ....3s.
Seven-eighths of all the tobacco brought into this country is grown in the United States. The duties payable are 3s. ltd. per lb. on unmanufactured tobacco ; Els. 51d. per lb. on cigars and manufactured tobacco ; and Cs. 3td. per lb. on snuff.
The imports in the last two years have been : 1849. 1850.
Unmanufac- lbs... 33,894,506 lbs. tared Manafactrd. } 1,013,474 lbs... 1,532,829 lbs. and Snuff The home consumption is about 28,000,000 lbs. annually, the rest being re-exported. The gross duty realised in the two years was 4,425,0401. and 4,430,1341, respectively.