Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

32 THE MANUFACTURE OF TOBACCO, CIGARS AND CIGARETTES. THE cultivation of the tobacco plant finds no place in a list of the industries of the United Kingdom, not because it is forbidden by nature, but because it is sup- pressed by law. In the year in which Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, one Jean Nicot, ambassador of France to the Court of Lisbon, learned of the arrival for the first time in Europe of the seeds of a plant which was destined henceforth to bear his name. He sent some of these seeds to Catherine dei Medici, and it was not long before the plant began to spring up in various parts of the Continent. In the middle of the seventeenth c e n t ury tobacco was already being raised in Eng- land, but the new crop was forbidden by Charles II., who de- sired to encourage the produce of the Virginian plantations. The plant was grown fitfully for a century and more, but tobacco cultivation was a^ain <■> year or two after the declaration of the independence of the American colonies, not out of regard to their interests, but because of the necessities of the exchequer. Another century passed by, and in 1886 the revenue officers again permitted experimental culti- vation to be pursued for a season or two, with the result that the ability of English farmers to produce a paying crop was again demonstrated. But the difficulty of adjust- ing the tax so as not to interfere with the gold mine derived from the tobacco duties was declared to be insuperable^ and that is stripping firmly suppressed a the reason why the tobacco industry in this country is limited to the preparation of the cured leaf, imported from all parts of the world. Of the fifty species of tobacco the chief is known to botanists as Nicotiana Tabacum. In the broad-leaved variety it furnishes the famous tobaccos of Maryland, Cuba and the Philippines; the nar- row - leaved form is that grown in the plantations of Vir- ginia. It is usual to regard the oak-cured leaf of Latakia as another variety of the same predominant species. Turkish to- bacco is the produce of a smaller, more delicate plant, N. rus- tic^ or green tobacco ; and there are other cultivated species such as the mild, innocuous leaf of the dreamy Persian. But whatever the variety, all tobacco- reaches this country in pack- ages which may not tobacco. be less than 80 lb. By this means the labours of the Customs officers in the prevention of smuggling are lightened. I he Virginian leaf, which is the foundation of most kinds of pipe tobacco, is imported in hogsheads weighing not less than 950 lb. There is nowadays a great demand for mild blends, and one of the first duties of the manufacturer is to produce such a mixture of leaf of various kinds as shall produce the result aimed at in the smoking mixtures to which his customers have become accus- tomed. This task falls to the manufacturer, who obtains from the bonded warehouses a 4-lb. sample drawn from each of the