Tobacco was unknown to Europeans until after the discovery of America.  Some sailors having been sent ashore in Cuba by Columbus, were surprised to see the natives of the island puffing smoke from their mouths and nostrils.  They afterward learned that this was the smoke of the dried leaves of tobacco.  This plant was extensively cultivated by the natives on the islands and the continent. There are numerous varieties of it—some mild and fragrant; others extremely pungent and fetid; some with a narrow, and others with a broad leaf, which is used in the manufacture of cigars. It is a perennial plant, with a flowering stem. Its botanical name is Nicotiana, of which genus there are as many as thirty species, only two of which— Nicotiana Tobacum [since changed to Nicotiana tabacum -ASC], and Nicotiana Rustica—are much cultivated for use. The specific name, Tobacum, is not, as has been supposed, a corruption of Tobago or Tobasco, whence it was brought, but, as Humboldt has shown, is the Haytian word for the pipe in which it is smoked. It was first introduced into Spain, in 1560, by Jean Nicot, from whom it derives its generic name. The practice of smoking it was introduced into England, in 1586, by Sir Walter Raleigh.

Tobacco acts as a sedative, calming the nervous system and inviting to repose; but when used to excess, it produces nausea, debility, and sometimes death. Its active principle, which is procured either by distilling or burning its leaves, is a deadly poison. Its medicinal properties are very doubtful.  The opinions of medical authors on this point are diametrically opposite.  There can be no doubt, however, that the excessive use of it often shortens human life.

The cultivation of tobacco has greatly increased in the United States during the last decade. In 1850 the quantity raised, as stated in the census report, was 199,762,665 pounds; in 1860 the quantity was 429,390,771 pounds.  Some idea of the extent to which its production and manufacture enter into the industrial resources of the country may be formed from the fact that the value of tobacco in the leaf, exported in 1860, was $15,906,547; to which add manufactured tobacco exported, $3,372,964; total exports in 1860, $19,279,511.

The peculiar condition of the country at the present time—the fact that some of the tobacco-growing States are disloyal, while others are the battle-field of contending armies, where the industry of the country is diverted from its wonted channels—turns the attention of farmers to the culture of this plant.  We propose, therefore, to give a concise statement of the method usually pursued in cultivating and preparing it for market.

Although tobacco is grown through a wide range of temperature—from the equator to Moscow, in Russia, in latitude 56°, and through all the intervening range of climate—yet, as it requires a considerable length of summer to bring it to perfection, it does not ripen well in high latitudes. It is, therefore, necessary to sow the seed in a hotbed, or in some sheltered place, as early as the spring will permit. If on new soil, the bed should be prepared by burning brush upon it; if on old soil, by the admixture of well-prepared compost in addition. The seed-beds should be long and narrow, in order that they may be easily kept free from weeds. The soil is to be thoroughly pulverized. The seed should be mixed with dry plaster or ashes, and sowed broadcast. A table-spoonful of seed is sufficient for a square rod. It should not be covered, but the bed should be rolled or pressed with a board or with the hoe, and should be kept moist. The utmost care should be observed to prevent the growth of weeds among the young plants, whose growth must be urged forward as rapidly as possible. They should stand in the seed-bed from half an inch to an inch apart. Great care must be taken to guard them from the late frosts of spring.  They are liable to be attacked, in an early stage of their growth, by a small black fly, which injures, if it does not destroy, them. On this account, their growth should bé stimulated by the application of ashes, soot, plaster, or guano, and they will soon get beyond its ravages. They should also be watered in dry weather from a common sprinkler.  In about two months they will have attained a height of three inches, and be large enough to be transplanted.

A sandy loam is the best soil for growing tobacco. It should be thoroughly manured the fall previous by at least thirty loads of good stable or barnyard manure, and ploughed; should have a southern exposure, and should be ploughed and harrowed, and thoroughly pulverized in the spring. About the 1st of June the plants should be set in rows three and a half feet apart, and in these rows three feet from each other.  To facilitate the use of the horse-hoe or cultivator, the land should he marked crosswise, and the plants set at the intersection of the marks. Before setting, form a slight hill with: the hoe, leaving a hollow on the top, and, unless the transplanting be done in wet weather, water should be put in each hill. Make a hole of a suitable depth, and, having carefully placed the root of the plant in it, press the earth firmly around it. As some plants will fail to grow, care must be taken to have enough remaining in the seed-bed to supply failures.

In one week after transplanting pass through the rows with the cultivator and hoe the plants, and repeat the hoeing several times during the season. No weeds must be allowed on the field. “The plants must be constantly watched, to protect them from the ravages of the tobacco worm. This worm, which preys upon the tobacco in the months of July and August, is the larva of the Sphinx Carolina. The moth is of a gray color, has on each side of the abdomen five orange-colored spots encircled with black, and has a tongue that can be unrolled to the length of five or six inches.  The larva is a long, green worm of a disgusting appearance, having a caudal horn, and is generally known as the tobacco worm, though it is sometimes called the horn worm. The utmost vigilance is necessary, to prevent this worm from injuring the plants.  They must be examined morning and evening, and the worms and the eggs deposited by the fly must be picked off and destroyed. The eggs will be found on the under side of the leaf. Turkeys will devour the worms greedily, and kill them even after their appetite is satiated. The chief reliance, however, must be upon seizing them with the thumb and finger and destroying them.

In order to throw the energies of the plant into a few large leaves, it is necessary to cut off the top at the time of flowering—cutting off not only the flower, but a few of the top leaves which cannot be fully developed. The number of leaves to be cut off with the top depends upon the forwardness and strength of the plant, some requiring the removal of more and some less. The suckers at the foot of each leaf stalk must be carefully removed in the incipient stages of their growth. So important was this suckering, as it is termed, regarded in Virginia, and so surely do the suckers injure the quality of the tobacco, that penal laws were at one period enacted to prevent negligence in destroying them.

Much discernment and good judgment are necessary to determine when the crop is sufficiently mature for the harvesting.  When ripe it turns spotted, and the color of the lower leaves changes to a brown. It is essential that the plants be housed before the first frost. The whole crop will not be ripe at the same time, and it will be necessary to pass through the field, selecting such plants only as appear to be ripe. They are cut with a knife similar to that used for cutting cornstalks, and are laid upon the ground for a few hours to wilt, but must not be long exposed to a hot sun. They are then removed to the tobacco house, and hung up by pegs driven into the stalk by a mallet about four inches from the largest end of the stalk, or by tying the stalk to poles which are laid on beams or joists as near to each other as possible, and still permit a free circulation of air. If hung too closely, they are injured while in a green state. By some planters the drying is hastened by a gentle fire underneath, but generally reliance is placed on the air, which is freely admitted in dry weather, but is excluded in damp.

Many planters think it best to commence the harvest when the majority of the plants are ripe, and then take them clean in the cutting. They think the scattering plants are more liable to injury from wind and rain. Good planters, doubtless, differ on many points in the culture of tobacco; and those who engage in the business must profit from their own observation and experience.

The size of the tobacco shed should vary with the extent of the crop which it is proposed to cultivate. Its height may be such as to receive several tiers of plants when suspended on the poles. These poles should be placed five feet apart. A free ventilation should be secured from the sides of the building by having the boards placed vertically, and every third board hung on hinges.  The building should also admit air from beneath. It should have a tight roof, on which there should be a ventilator constructed with slats in the form of Venetian blinds. The main principle to be secured is a free and perfect ventilation, which shall carry off the moisture of the plants as fast as possible.  During the prevalence of cold, drying winds, the ventilators on the windward side should he closed, and in very damp weather they should all be closed. A building 35 feet long, 24 feet wide, and 15 feet high, will receive three tiers of plants, and will store the tobacco grown on an acre.

When the plant is fully cured, which may be known by the stem of the leaf becoming free from sap, it is to be stripped from the stalks. A damp day should be selected, so that the leaves may not crack and waste. It is essential that they be pliant. As it is stripped from the stalk it is assorted into different qualities, according to the uses to which it is to be applied in manufacturing.  The broad leaf, which is suited to form wrappers for cigars, must be carefully laid by itself. A sufficient number of leaves is tied together to form what is termed a hand, and the leaves are bent over, forming a head, around which a wrapper is wound and tied. These are laid in piles, the bent ends outward, and, after remaining for a few days, they will be ready to pack. In Virginia and Maryland tobacco is packed in hogsheads; in Connecticut, in boxes.  Heavy pressure is used by which the tobacco is pressed into a hard mass, so that a hogshead contains from 750 to 900 pounds. In this condition it is sent to market.

1. The land must be in good condition—well enriched with manure. It must be ploughed in the fall, and again in the spring, and be thoroughly pulverized.
2. The plants in the seed-bed must be carefully weeded and guarded against the fly, and so thinned out as to require a hardy growth before being transplanted.
3. During the season for the ravages of the worm the plants must be examined twice each day for the purpose of destroying them.
4. In curing, the leaf-stalk must become perfectly freed from moisture.
5. We add: farmers who are commencing the culture of tobacco should avail themselves of the services of an experienced man who can supply that knowledge which cannot be learned from books.

It may be proper to say a word in regard to the profit of the crop. In the first place, if the crop is grown on one field but for a single season, it leaves the land in good condition for any crop the next year. It is highly manured and free from weeds.

It may be followed by wheat, and then by grass, and by this rotation remunerative crops may be secured without exhausting the soil. The worn-out fields in some of the tobacco-growing States should be monitory to cultivators, and teach them one of the most important lessons of modern tillage, viz: the necessity of a proper rotation of crops.

Next, a crop of tobacco successfully grown and cured commands a ready sale at from twelve to fifteen cents per pound. At this present writing; owing to the peculiar circumstances of the country, the price is enhanced. If unfortunate in the curing, the owner will not realize more than half the current price. The following statement shows the net profit of raising tobacco on alluvial soil in Whately, Mass., and the value of succeeding crops, by observing a proper rotation. It is an extract from a letter to the Country Gentleman, February 28, 1861. The crop described was grown by Elihu Belden, on a field of twelve acres, which was thoroughly prepared, hoed three times, and the suckers and worms carefully removed from the plants. The product was 23,850 pounds of tobacco, or nearly one ton to the acre.

After harvesting the tobacco, he ploughed the land nine inches deep, and sowed it, September 18, 1859, with 18 bushels of Kentucky white bald wheat.  This, when harvested, yielded 540 bushels of wheat and 36 tons of straw.

The land, then stocked with timothy, would, for three years, bear enormous crops of hay on the strength of the unexpended manure.

In Iowa and Illinois the yield is given by correspondents at from 1,000 to 1,600 pounds per acre.

Instances are noticed, in the history of this culture in Connecticut, of the production of 2,500 pounds per acre, realizing about $400, not merely for a single acre, but including returns of entire fields of many acres in extent.

Such results are due not to the superior fertility of the soil over that of Virginia, but to the large amount of fertilizing material employed.

It has been a question with some whether this high culture is more profitable than the usual four-shif system of Maryland and Virginia, with clover as its means of fertilization. Yet it can hardly be considered a question by intelligent tobacco-growers of the present day. Indeed, within a few years, fertilizers have been greatly depended on in those States. Oliver N. Bryan, of Maryland, in his prize essay on tobacco, recommended: First, Peruvian guano; second, hog manure; third, well-rotted oak ashes; fourth, well-rotted stable manure, with plaster. If guano is used, it should be put on at the rate of one thousand pounds to the acre.”  W.W. Bowie, of Maryland, in his prize essay, advocated a liberal top-dressing, every ten days, of a compost of unleached ashes, “virgin woods earth,” pulverized sulphur, plaster, and salt. He would apply guano on light soils, but not on rich land.

Cultivators in the States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Ohio, report as an average, under the system of cultivation practiced, and without much manuring in the latter States, from 1,000 to 2,000 pounds, according to quality of soil and variety of tobacco.

A writer upon the culture in Virginia has stigmatized it as the bane of Virginian agriculture. That the deterioration of the soil of the Old Dominion is the result of hard cropping, shallow ploughing, and no manuring, rather than of the culture of tobacco, is very evident from the significant fact that the tobacco lands of Connecticut, under high culture, are constantly improving, while crops are diminishing wherever the system of Virginia is practiced.