The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom / Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.

by P. L. Simmonds

The Maryland is a very light tobacco, in thin, yellow leaves; that of Virginia is in large brown leaves, unctuous or somewhat gluey on the surface, having a smell very like the figs of Malaga; that of Havanna is in brownish light leaves, of an agreeable and rather spicy smell,—it forms, as I have already stated, the best cigars. The Carolina tobacco is less unctuous than the Virginian, but in the United States it ranks next to the Maryland. The shag tobacco is dried to the proper point upon sheets of copper, and is cut up by knife-edged chopping stamps. There are said to be four kinds of tobacco reared in Virginia, viz., the sweet-scented, which is considered the best; the big and little, which follows next; then the Frederick; and, lastly, the one and all, the largest kind, and producing most in point of quantity.

According to Loudon ("Encyclo. of Plants"), there are fourteen species of this genus, besides a few varieties. Lindley, however, enumerates 31, but many of these are mere showy species, adapted to flower gardens. I shall therefore follow chiefly Loudon's classification—

1. N. Tabacum, a native of several parts of America, but principally known as Virginian tobacco, having a stem rising from four to six feet or more in height, bearing pink flowers. Of this there are three chief varieties known in America by the popular names of Orinoco, Broad-leaved and Narrow-leaved. Lindley enumerates eight varieties of N. Tabacum.

2. N. macrophylla, or large-leaved tobacco, an ornamental annual, also with pink flowers, native of America, which rises to the height of six feet.

3. N. fruticosa, or shrubby tobacco, an ornamental evergreen shrub, native of China, with pink blossoms, which grows to about three feet.

4. N. undulata, or suaveolens, sweet-scented or New Holland tobacco, a green house perennial, native of New South Wales, with white flowers, which is only two feet high.

5. N. rustica.—The common green or English tobacco, an annual plant, native of America, producing white flowers, which seldom grows higher than three feet.

6. N. paniculata, or panicled tobacco, an annual plant bearing greenish yellow flowers, native of Peru, rises to the height of three feet.

7. N. glutinosa, or clammy-leaved tobacco, also an annual plant, native of Peru, growing to the height of four feet, with bright scarlet flowers.

8. N. plumbaginifolia, or curled-leaved tobacco, an ornamental deciduous annual, native of America, with white blossoms, rising to the height of two feet.