Blend Tobacco

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Best tobacco plant is a hardy flowering perennial, growing freely in a rich moist soil, which is very necessary to its healthy development; but which it is said to exhaust in a remarkable degree. It varies in height according to species and locality; in some instances growing to the altitude of fifteen feet, in others not reaching more than three feet from the ground. There is also a dwarf kind discovered by Houston at Vera Cruz, the leaves of which grow in tufts near the ground, the flowers rising from a central stem to the height of eighteen inches. As many as forty varieties of the tobacco plant have been noted by botanists, who class them all among the Solanacece, and narcotic poisons. The Atropa Belladonna, or deadly nightshade, is a member of this family; but it may be of use to the nervous to know that the common potato is in the same category; and that, though tobacco will produce a virulent poison nicotine by the chemical condensation of a large quantity, in a similar manner the potato fruit and leaves give us Sola nine, an acrid narcotic poison, two grains of which given to a rabbit, produced paralysis of the posterior extremities, and death in two hours. Traces of this are also found in the healthy tubers. It is therefore evident that in a moderate manner, we may equally smoke our tobacco or eat our potato as regardless of the horrors that chemistry would seem at first to disclose, as when enjoying the flavour of the bitter almond, which we know to be owing to the presence of prussic acid. The three principal varieties of the plant most commonly grown are, the Virginian tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum – Linnaeus), which is that which was first brought to Europe by Sir Francis Drake; it sometimes reaches the height of seven feet, and is of a strong coarse growth, the leaves, sometimes two feet long, clasp the stem as shown at A, and are covered with glandular hairs, which burst on the smallest pressure, and impart a glutinous character to the leaf, and an unpleasant odour to the hand. The flowers grow in a bunch on the summit of the plant, they are of a pink colour, the segments of the corolla being pointed. Shag, returns, and the ordinary fine cut tobaccos are prepared from this kind; of which there are many varieties, giving name to different qualities of tobacco, and chiefly adopted from the places of their growth. The Syrian tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) differs from this in many essential particulars, as may be seen in our engraving, the principal being the branched stem, each offshoot bearing flowers; the leaves do not clasp the stem, but are attached by a long stalk, and they are not lanceolate, but ovate in form; the flowers are not pink, but green, and the segments of the corolla are rounded. It does not grow so high as the American plant by about two feet; it is milder than that in flavour, and is used for the more delicate fine cut tobaccos and cigars. The Latakia tobacco, and that known as Turkish and Syrian, are both manufactured from this plant. It is a native of America, but grows wild in other countries, and is a hardy annual in English gardens, flowering from Midsummer to Michaelmas, so that by some botanists it has been termed ” common, or English tobacco.” The Shiraz Tobacco [Nicotiana persica - Lindley] differs from both in the form of the leaves, and the colour of the flowers, which are white, and the segments of the corolla unequal. It is a native of Persia, and used for the manufacture of their most delicate lands for smoking, but Lindley informs us that it is not fitted to form cigars, as it does not readily ignite. It is also never used medicinally as other tobaccos are, or have been.

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