This variety of the tobacco plant is one of the most celebrated known to commerce. It attains its finest form and flavor in Syria, where it is cultivated to a considerable extent. For smoking it is among the best of the varieties of the East, and is used for the more delicate cut tobaccos and cigars. It grows to the height of three feet—each offshoot bearing flowers, the leaves of which are ovate in form, and are attached to the stalk by a long stem. The flowers are yellow, and number only a few in comparison with most varieties. When growing, the leaves are thick, but after curing are thin and elastic. The stalk is small, as are also the leaves. While growing, the plants emit a strong aromatic odor not like that of Havana tobacco, but stronger and less agreeable.
The plant was introduced into this country by Bayard Taylor, and attains its full size in the Connecticut valley, where it has been tested by many growers. After curing, the leaf is a bright yellow of agreeable flavor, having the odor of ashes of roses. The flavor is similar to Turkish tobacco, but is said to be less delicate.
After harvesting, the plants cure rapidly and on account of their small size rarely sweat. Latakia tobacco, however, is not adapted to the taste of American smokers, most of whom prefer tobacco of home growth to even the finest of Turkish leaf. Latakia tobacco can be raised with less labor than most varieties. Its diminutive size and its unpopularity, however, prevent its general culture in this country.
RUSSIAN TOBACCO.
In no other country in Europe is the tobacco plant attracting as much as attention as in the empire of Russia. The varieties grown in America, Cuba, Turkey, and Persia, have been tried, renewing the seed once in two or three years. The tobacco of Russia is mild, and of inferior flavor, and brings from 40 to 80 kopecks per pood. A very good quality of tobacco is grown in the trans-Caucasian provinces; it also flourishes well in the Southern provinces.
The plants attain good size, but lack that fine flavor when cured that other tobaccos possess. A recent traveler through Russia, describing the tobacco, says:
"Russian tobacco is very mild and rather sweet flavored, though not equal in aroma to the Havana, or posessing that rich ripe taste so much prized in that well known tobacco."
COLOMBIA TOBACCO.
Colombia has long been celebrated for the quality and varieties of its tobacco. Its cultivation has been carried on for more than two hundred and fifty years, and Varinian tobacco had obtained a well established reputation in Europe long before Raleigh's "would-be-colonists" sailed for Virginia. The principal varieties grown are Colombian, Carmen, Ambalema, Palmyra, and Giron. Most of these tobaccos are used for cigar purposes, especially the latter. The leaf is fine, of good size, and marked with light yellow spots. Tanning says of the tobacco of Colombia:
"The Cumanacoa, Tobacco de la Cueva, de los Misones, de la Laguna de Valencia cura seca and Caraco, de la Lagunade Valencia cura negro, de Oriluca, de Varinos cura seca, de Casovare, de Baylodores, de Rio Negro en Andull, are equal to the tobacco of the Brazils. The tobacco of the Cueva, in the department of Cumana, is said to be grown from the excrements of certain birds deposited by them in a cavity, from which the natives extract it: it is considered the finest tobacco in Colombia. The birds are a species of the owl.