A
TREATISE
ON THE
CULTURE
OF THE
TOBACCO PLANT.

Price Two Shillings and Sixpence.

Flowers of the Tobacco plant
Drawn and Engraved by Copland & Sansom N^o 16 Maiden Lane

A
TREATISE
ON THE
CULTURE
OF THE
TOBACCO PLANT;

WITH THE
Manner in which it is usually cured.

ADAPTED TO
NORTHERN CLIMATES,

AND
DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF THE
LANDHOLDERS OF GREAT-BRITAIN.

TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED,
Two Plates of the Plant and its Flowers.

By JONATHAN CARVER, Esq.

Author of Travels through the interior Parts of
North-America.

LONDON:
Printed for the Author,
And sold by J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Church-yard.
1779.

TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE PRESIDENT,
VICE-PRESIDENTS,
AND
MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
FOR THE
ENCOURAGEMENT OF ARTS,
MANUFACTURES AND
COMMERCE.

The Extension of every Branch of useful Knowledge being the great Object of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, the Author begs Leave to commit the following Treatise to their Patronage.

London, March 26th, 1779.

CONTENTS.

Tobacco plant
Drawn and Engraved by Copland & Sansom N^o 16 Maiden Lane

A TREATISE, &c.

CHAPTER I.
Of the Discovery and Uses of Tobacco.

Tobacco, or Tabacco, is a medicinal plant, which remained unknown to Europeans till the discovery of America by the Spaniards; being first imported from thence about the year 1560. The Americans of the continent called it Petun; those of the islands, Yoli. Hernandez de Toledo sent it into Spain from Tabaco, a province of Yucatan, where he first found and learned its use; and from which place he gave it the denomination it still bears.

Sir Walter Raleigh first introduced the use of it into England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, about the year 1585. The plant was probably known in this kingdom before that time, by means of the Spaniards or Portuguese; it is however certain, that he first taught the English to smoke it.

The French, on its first introduction among them, gave it various names, as Nicotiana, or the Embassador's Herb, from John Nicot, who came soon after it was discovered, as embassador to that court, from Francis the Second of Portugal, and brought some of it with him; which he presented to a grand Prior of the house of Lorrain, and to Queen Catherine de Medicis: on this account it was sometimes called the Grand Prior's Herb, and sometimes the Queen's Herb.

When, or in what manner this plant was introduced into the oriental nations is uncertain, although it is at present in general use among them. Considerable quantities of it are likewise cultivated in the Levant, the coasts of Greece and the Archipelago, in the island of Malta and in Italy.

Tobacco is termed by botanists, Nicotiana; and is arranged by them as a genus of the Pentandria Monogynia class of plants. It is sometimes used medicinally; but being very powerful in its operations, this must be done with great caution. The most common uses of it are, either as a sternutatory when taken by way of snuff, as a masticatory by chewing it in the mouth, or as an effluvia by smoking it; and when used with moderation is not an unhealthy amusement, whether it replenishes the humble pouch of the rustic, or the golden box of the courtier.

Before pipes were invented, it was usually smoked in segars, and they are still in use among some of the southern nations. The method of preparing these is at once simple and expeditious: a leaf of tobacco being formed into a small twisted roll somewhat larger than the stem of a pipe, and about eight inches long, the smoke is conveyed through the winding folds, which prevent it from expanding, as through a tube; so that one end of it being lighted, and the other applied to the mouth, it is in this form used without much inconvenience: but in process of time, pipes being invented, they were found more commodious vehicles for the smoke, and are now in general use.

Among all the productions of foreign climes introduced into these kingdoms, scarcely any has been held in higher estimation by persons of every rank than tobacco. In the countries of which it is a native, it is considered by the