Note Back to Main Text — Chapter V

Neander in his work "Tobacologia," (1622) gives a list of the various kinds of tobacco then used and where they were cultivated, among them are the following well known now as standard varieties of tobacco: Brazilian, St. Domingo, Orinoco, Virginia, and Trinidad tobacco. Fairholt says of the latter that it was most popular in England and is frequently named by early authors.[50] Tobacco when prepared for use was made into long rolls or large balls which often answered for the tobacconist's sign. What we now call cut tobacco was not as popular then as roll. Smokers carried a roll of tobacco, a knife and tinder to ignite their tobacco. At the close of the Sixteenth Century tobacco was introduced into the East. In Persia and Turkey where at first its use was opposed by the most cruel torture it gained at length the sanction and approval of even the Sultan himself. Pallas gives the following account in regard to its first introduction into Asia: