Tobacco

Abstract

WHEN Columbus landed in 1492 in the West Indies he found the natives smoking a herb wrapped in a maize leaf, and the name of the herb was Tobago. In 1560 Jean Nicot distributed plants raised from seed to various parts of Europe. These two events give us the clue to the popular and scientific names of a drug the cultivation and preparation of which have now attained such enormous importance that Governments are supported by the revenue derived from its taxation, and colossal fortunes are made by its sale. Some idea of the scale on which the industry is carried on may be gathered from the statistics recently published in the “Year-book of the United States Department of Agriculture for 1899,” where we read that during that year 266,661,752 pounds of tobacco, 4,542,016,570 cigars and 4,590,388,430 cigarettes were prepared in the United States alone, yielding a revenue to the Government of 52,643,859.05 dollars.