TOBACCO

was in use among the red men at the time when America was discovered, and the practice of smoking was a kind of religious ceremony. It was first used in Europe in the form of snuff, but Drake and his companions introduced into England the practice of smoking it on their return from Virginia in 1585. Pope Urban VIII. and Pope Innocent IX. i ued Bulls excommunicating any one who used snuff in Church, and in Turkey smoking was made a capital crime, while in Bern a prohibition of the use of tobacco was added to the commandment about adultery. in the famous Vuelta-abajo district, west of Havana, the soil is a light sandy loam, very rich in lime, potash, and forest refuse and as both the heat and the humidity are great, it is; an ideal site for the tobacco plant. As the area is, however, strictly limited, it is physically impo ible for half the ' Havana ’ cigars which are in the European market to have been Charente, millions of oranges are labelled ‘ Jaffa ’ and ‘St. Michael’ which never grew in Palestine or the Azores tons of 1 Patna ’ rice hail from Bangkok or Rangoon,; and hundreds of ‘Kashmir’ shawls are woven in Paisley, though some do stiil come from Srinagar. the production of cigars is Manilla, though Borneo is coming into the market; but in regard to the total quantity of tobacco grown, the U.S.A. rival Cuba and the Philippine Islands combined, and British India is not very far behind the States. While the Indian tobacco is, however, of inferior quality and largely converted into Tri chino pol i cheroots, the Virgin i an and Kentucky product is of excellent quality, and largely converted into pipe and cigarette tobacco. Louisville, the Kentucky centre, though not so well known as Richmond, the Virgin i an centre, is the largest tobacco market * on earth.’