Owingsville outlook. [volume] (Owingsville, Ky.) 1879-192?, 1898-11-10
Tobacco.
An interesting History of
the Plant and Some VAL
liable Facts Regarding
Its Production.

published 10y any transportation COM
pany in the interest of the section it
traverses. The book is octave i'm size,
contains nearly two hundred pages
and four hundred Illustrations. Its
author, Mr.. Frank Presbrey, has
long been known as IA writer on
southern matters, and i'm the prep
aration of this comprehensive vol
ume he has had the cooperation of
the officials of the Southern. From
advance sheets we quote the follow
ing interesting chapter on tobacco.l
Tradition has it that one stormy
night there were gathered at the
Mermaid Inn, London, bluff old Ben
JOnson. Shakespeare, Beaumont, and
"a half dozen other genial spirits,
when in walked Sir Walter Raleigh,
and throwing down ON the table
some pipes and tobacco, invited them
to smoke and showed them how.
Shakespeare is said to have remarked
that it was anticipating things a lit
tie to smoke i'm this world, but Jonson,
he OF ready tongue, after the first
pipcful, exclaimed: Tobacco, do
assert without fear of contradiction
from yon Avon skylark, is the most
soothing sovereign and precious weed
that ever our dear mother earth did
tender to the use Of man. Let him who
would contradict that mild but sim
cere assertion look to his undertaken.
Sir Walter, your health!"
From the earliest days of the set
Element of the South, tobacco has
been one of the main agricultural
crops. 1t was long the chief source
of wealth, and for nearly two hun
drcd years the principal currency Of
the Colonies, and the first loan ever
negotiated by the United States Gov
eminent was made payable in it.
Upon tobacco all other values We're
based, and because of the greater
profit in growing it the othe: agricul-
tural interests were neglected. Prior
to the Revolutionary War exports of
tobacco had rapidly increased with
each year, but during that period its
culture in other countries attained
considerable proportions, and when
peace was restored the foreign mar
ket presented q new element of COM
petition, and American tobacco ex-
ports have not since that time in
creased in nearly so great ratio as
before. Its cultivation, however, has
extended over all the Southern
States, some growing small and 9TH
ers large quantities. Since 1870 Viz
ginia, which had been up to that
time the greatest producer, has
ranked second. Kentucky taking the
lead.
n cursory review of the history OF
tobacco growing presents many
points of interest. Probably tie first
mention If il was made by Columbus
on his FIRST voyage, in ll92, when he
found the natives using it, and later,
on his SECOND voyage, in 1881, FriGr
Pane, who accompanied him, spoke
OF its use for both chewing and as
sG,iF. Columbus told further that
these natives chewed and smoked an
herb having pungent yet aromatic
smell aad bitter taste, called cogiaba
or cOhiba. IN 1868 the SpaniGrGs
found the natives Of Paraguay using
it. and in 1919 or l52O it Is mentioned
us tobasco. In 1853 some leaves were
sent from san Domingo To Europe
by Hernandez de Toledo, and a little
later Jean Nicot, envoy from the
court of France to Portugal, sent to
Queen Catherine de Medicis some
seed. Through this circumstance it
was named Hcrba Regina, and, in
honor of the minister, Nicotina. Still
later, in 1855, Sir John Hawkins car
ried some leaf from Florida to Eng
land, and in 1854 n member of Sir
Richard Grenville's petition,
which, under the auspices of Sir
Walter Raleigh, discovered Virginia
in 1855, told of the herb, saying that
the natives called it "uppowac," but
that in the West Indies the Span
iards called it tobacco" 1t goes on
to say that the leaves thereof being
dried and brought to powder, they
Ohe natives) used to take the fume
or smoke thereof, by sucking it
through pipes made of clay into their
stOmache and head"
In 1910 the first secretary of the
Virginia colony wrote: "He<e is a
great store of tobacco which the saw
ages call apooke, howbeit, it is not of
the best kind; it is but poor and
weak, and of a byting taste.
The savages here dry the leaves of
the apCoke over the fer, and some
times in the sun, and crumble it to
powder-stalks, leaves and all-tak-
ing the same in pipes of earth, which
they very ingeniously can make" In
1885, when Sir Richard Grenville re-
turned to England, he carried with
him both pipes and tobacco, as did
also Sir Ralph Lane, who was sent
out by Sir Walter Raleigh as the first
governor of the colony, aud returned
to England in 1856.
The first efforts at cultivating the
plant appear to have been made in
1912, by John Rolfe, husband of Po-
cahontas. SO successful was he that
tobacco became mania with the
culonists, and in short time little
else was grown or thought of. In 1917,
Captain Samuel Argall, the new gov
eruor, says that all the public works !
and buildings i'm jamestown had |
fallen into decay; the market place,
streets aud other spare places planted
with tobacco and the colony dis
persed all about, as every man could
find the properest place and the best
for planting"
About this time, because of much /
among the colonists, most /
of " HON were young unmarried men,
and the return of Il number of them
to England, shipment of ''ninety