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In June, 1619, twenty thousand pounds were shipped to England. James I, a pedant in learning and a fool in statecraft, made a furious attack upon the use of tobacco in a paper which he called "A Counterblaste to Tobacco." His kingly influence caused a duty of sixpence a pound to be levied on all importations of tobacco to the United Kingdom. So far, however, from the "Counterblaste" proving an injury to the planter and a check to the consumption of tobacco, it actually increased the one and benefited the other. Prices went up and the area of its cultivation was rapidly enlarged. From this period on, the colony of Virginia grew and expanded, and the narcotic which aroused the kingly ire of James became the foundation stone upon which was erected one of the most populous and prosperous commonwealths in the New World. And so it came about that the beginning of law, the expansion of justice, the increase of commerce, civilization, culture, refinement and progressive thought, rested upon the plant, the fumes of which were compared by King James to the "fumes of hell."

FIG. 2. INDIAN SMOKING, A FRESH SUPPLY OF LEAVES BEING BROUGHT IN BY A FEMALE. From Be Bry's "Historia Brasiliana," 1590.

Young women were brought into the colony after this, to become the wives of the growers of tobacco. In 1620, and just before the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, ninety young women were brought to Virginia, chargeable with the cost of transportation, which was at first one hundred and twenty pounds, and afterwards one hundred and fifty pounds, of tobacco. This expense was cheerfully borne by those who took

them for wives. And thus tobacco first riveted the bonds of matrimony in the New World, and made contented citizens of the little white band of adventurous spirits that first peopled Virginia. But for the profits of tobacco, the colony would, doubtless, have perished, and British civilization would have lost its foothold in the southern boundaries of North America.

The profits from tobacco proved so great that the cultivation of the food crops was neglected. This condition demanded strenuous regulations by the Virginia company. In 1621, the colonists were restricted to the planting of one hundred plants per head, and the number of leaves to each plant was limited to nine. Afterwards, the number of leaves was extended to twenty-five or thirty, and reduced, in 1629, to twelve. 1629, 3000 plants per poll and 1000 plants each for women and children were allowed. The crop of 1621 was 60,000 pounds, 55,000 pounds of which were exported to Holland. The price in England for the same year, with the duty added, ranged from seventy-five cents to one dollar

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FIG. 3. TOBACCONIST'S SHOP, LONDON, 1600.

From Brathwait's "Smoking

Age."

In

per pound. In 1676, the mother country collected from the duty on tobacco 120,000 pounds sterling. The whole amount collected from the custom duties in 1590, during the reign of Elizabeth, was only 50,000 pounds. This increase is largely to be attributed to the trade in tobacco. In 1731, the exports of tobacco from the Provinces of Maryland and Virginia conjointly reached 60,000 hogsheads of 600 pounds each, which yielded 375,000 pounds sterling, or $1,875,000. The imposts on this were 180,000 pounds sterling, or $900,000.

Warehouses for the inspection of tobacco were first established in Virginia in 1730, the object of which was to prevent the exportation of trash, bad, unsound and unmerchantable tobacco. The minimum weight for a hogshead was 800 pounds. So rapidly did this industry grow, that in 1754 the exports from Virginia alone were 50,000 hogsheads. During this period, tobacco was worth, in London, 11d to 123d per pound. Only 24,500 hogsheads were made in Virginia in 1758, and the price rose as high as fifty shillings per hundred pounds in that province. The

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annual average exports of tobacco from Virginia from 1745 to 1755 inclusive, were 44,000 hogsheads. The annual exportation from the American colonies from 1763 to 1770, was 66,780 hogsheads of 1000 pounds each. For the four years just before the Rev

FIG. 4. A TOBACCO "DRINKER" INHALING

olutionary war, 100,- SMOKE AND EXPELLING IT BY THE NOSE, 000,000 pounds were sent abroad annually. The average exports during the war of the Revolution were 12,000,000 pounds.

AS PRACTICED BY THE DUTCH ABOUT 1600. Copied from a rare book on tobacco published at Rotterdam, 1623.

Kentucky, now producing nearly one-half of all the tobacco grown in the United States, was settled mainly by Virginians, and the culture of tobacco was coeval with its first settlement. As early as 1785, Gen Wilkinson, of Kentucky, entered into a contract with the Spanish authorities in New Orleans to supply them with several boat loads of tobacco. It is believed that most of

this was grown in Kentucky. In the southern and cen tral parts of Kentucky, and in Tennessee, tobacco was grown as a commodity as early as 1810. Prior to 1833, by far the largest quantity of tobacco grown in Kentucky and Tennessee was sent to the market in New Orleans, where it was taken for foreign consumption. After that time, local dealers established factories in Clarksville and at a few interior points, and began to buy loose tobacco and stem it (i. e., take out the midrib of the leaf) for the English market. A few years after this, Henderson, Ky., grew to be a great strip market, a position which it still holds. From this time on, the Western markets for tobacco sprang up in many places. Inspection ware

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tobacco, and samThese two places, pioneer inspection

ples drawn by sworn inspectors. Louisville and Clarksville, are the markets of the Mississippi valley, and they opened the first inspection warehouses in the West. From the establishment of these local markets in Kentucky and Tennessee, the tobacco trade of the Mississippi valley went on increasing, until now it stands second only to cotton as a farm commodity for exportation.

The New England colonists grew some tobacco in the decade embraced between 1640 and 1650, but the cultivation of it was, for the most part, abandoned during the 18th and the first three decades of the 19th century, when, by experiments first made by B. P. Barber of East Windsor, Conn., it was ascertained that a quality of tobacco could be grown, deficient, indeed, in

sweetness and in nicotine, and in those qualities desired in chewing tobacco, but in fineness and delicacy of texture, in strength of tissue, and in glossiness and smoothness of surface, far superior to anything that had ever been grown in the South. It proved to be highly valuable in the manufacture of cigars. Its culture brought great wealth to the planters of the Connecticut valley, especially in the years succeeding the Civil war, which culminated in an era of speculation and extravagance that was closed disastrously by the panic of 1873. Meanwhile, eastern Pennsylvania and central New York State, attracted by the profit in cigar leaf tobacco, embarked in it upon a constantly increasing scale, followed by the Miami valley in Ohio, and by southern Wisconsin, until now more than 100,000,000 pounds of tobacco are grown in these states annually, not all of which may be classed as cigar leaf.

THE MOUND BUILDERS IN THE MIS
SISSIPPI VALLEY CENTURIES AGO
From Smithsonian Report, 1848.

The industry gradu- FIG. 6. PREHISTORIC PIPE USED BY ally revived from 1878 to 1885, when the increasing importation of wrapper leaf from Sumatra curtailed the market for domestic wrappers. Serious decline followed, with virtual bankruptcy for many planters, until the tariff of 1890 imposed a duty of two dollars per pound on imported wrappers. The domestic cigar leaf industry promptly rallied, quantity and quality of crop improved, prices advanced, and prosperity seemed to dawn. again upon the wrapper-producing sections. Florida's capabilities as a wrapper leaf State were demonstrated, although some excellent tobacco had been grown there prior to the Civil war. Prices declined after the national election in November, 1892, foreshadowing a change in policy; but with a return to the former method, it is

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