Spanish Planters.
Manilla tobacco is much esteemed in the islands both by the Spaniards and the Chinese. The custom of smoking is universal among all classes and at all times. In the house, on the road and street, the aroma of a fragrant Manilla is ever borne on the breeze. The Spaniards are the principal owners of the tobacco fields, and, like their brother planters on the island of Cuba, are fond of the weed and its more potent companion. After a luxurious breakfast the planter elevates his feet for a quiet smoke, and lights either a cigar or cheroot, filling the room with smoke and with the most fragrant perfume.
Of all the various products cultivated, but few vie with the tobacco plant in beauty of form and general appearance. By its great variety of colors in leaves and flowers, it offers a striking contrast with the more sombre hues of most other plants. When left to grow until the plants have reached full size, the tobacco field has the appearance of a vast flower garden, the tiny blossoms exhaling their fragrance and the entire plant emitting odors as rare and as delicate as the most fragrant exotic. In the tropics the finest tobacco plantations are found, as nature is more lavish, not only in the richness of the soil, but in the variety of the vegetable products. Here the tobacco plant attains its finest form and most delicately flavored leaves. The hues of the flowers are brighter and their fragrance sweeter. In the tropics the tobacco field may be scented from afar, as its odors are wafted on the breeze. In its native home it flourishes and matures as readily as the more common kinds of vegetation, while it affords the planter a larger revenue than many of the more useful of nature's products.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XI.
VARIETIES.
The tobacco plant almost vies with the palm in the number of varieties; botanists having enumerated as many as forty, which by no means includes the entire number now being cultivated. The plant shows also a great variety of forms, leaves, color of flowers, and texture. Each kind has some peculiar feature or quality not found in another; thus, one variety will have large leaves, while another will have small ones; one kind leaves flowers of a pink or yellow color, another white; one variety will produce a leaf black or brown, another yellow or dark red. The following list includes nearly all of the principal varieties now cultivated:—Connecticut seed leaf (broad and narrow leaf), New York seed leaf, Pennsylvania (Duck Island), Virginia and Maryland (Pryor and Frederick, James River, etc.), North Carolina (Yellow Orinoco, and Gooch or Pride of Granville, etc.), Ohio Seed leaf (broad leaf), Ohio leaf (Thick Set, Pear Tree, Burley, and White), Texas, Louisiana (Perique), Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, Havana, Yara, Mexican, St. Domingo, Columbia (Columbian, Giron, Esmelraldia, Palmyra, Ambolima), Rio Grande, Brazil, Orinoco, Paraguay, Porto Rico, Arracan, Greek, Java, Sumatra, Japan, Hungarian, China, Manilla, Algerian, Turkey, Holland (Amersfoort), Syrian (Latakia), French (St. Omer), Russian, and Circassian. Many of these varieties are well known to commerce, and others are hardly known outside the limit of their cultivation.
All of these varieties may be divided into three classes,[68] viz.: cigar, snuff, and cut-leaf tobacco. The first class, cigar leaf, includes all those varieties of tobacco that are used in the manufacture of cigars, and embraces the finest quality of tobacco grown, including Connecticut seed leaf, Havana, Yara, Manilla, Giron, Paraguayan, Mexican, Brazilian, Sumatra, etc. The second class embraces all of the varieties used in the manufacture of snuff, such as Virginia, Holland (Amersfoort), Brazilian, French (St. Omer), etc. The third class includes all of those tobaccos used for smoking and chewing purposes, such as Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Maryland, Latakia, Perique, Turkish, and others.
South American tobaccos are almost exclusively used for the manufacture of cigars. Although of various qualities, they possess the distinctive flavor which characterizes all tobacco used for this purpose. This is generally the case with most of the tobacco grown in the tropics—it seems to be especially adapted for the manufacture of cigars, rather than for cutting purposes. European tobaccos are milder in flavor, and are used extensively in the manufacture of snuff; while the tobacco of the East is well adapted for the pipe.