ABOUT TOBACCO PLANT

An old English writer in describing tobacco says:--"When at its just height, it is as tall as an ordinary sized man."

Tobacco is a hardy flowering annual plant, growing freely in a moist fertile soil and requiring the most thorough culture in order to secure the finest form and quality of leaf. It is a native of the tropics and under the intense rays of a vertical sun develops its finest and most remarkable flavor which far surpasses the varieties grown in a temperate region. It however readily adapts itself to soil and climate growing through a wide range of temperature from the Equator to Moscow in Russia in latitude 56°, and through all the intervening range of climate.
The plant varies in height according to species and locality; the largest varieties reaching an altitude of ten or twelve feet, in others not growing more than two or three feet from the ground.
Botanists have enumerated between forty and fifty varieties of the tobacco plant who class them all among the narcotic poisons.
When properly cultivated the plant ripens in a few weeks growing with a rapidity hardly equaled by any product either temperate or tropical. Of the large number of varieties cultivated scarcely more than one-half are grown to any great extent while many of them are hardly known outside of the limit of cultivation.


Tobacco is a strong growing plant resisting heat and drought to a far greater extent than most plants.

It is a native of America, the discovery of the continent and the plant occurring almost simultaneously. It succeeds best in a deep rich loam in a climate ranging from forty to fifty degrees of latitude.

After having been introduced and cultivated in nearly all parts of the world, America enjoys the reputation of growing the finest varieties known to commerce. European tobacco is lacking in flavor and is less powerful than the tobacco of America.

The botanical account of tobacco is as follows:--"Nicotiana, the tobacco plant is a genus of plants of the order of Monogynia, belonging to the pentandria class, order 1, of class V. It bears a tubular 5-cleft calyx; a funnel-formed corolla, with a plaited 5-cleft border; the stamina inclined; the stigma capitate; the capsule 2-celled, and 2 to 4 valved."

A more general description of the plant is given by an American writer:--"The tobacco plant is an annual growing from eighteen inches (dwarf tobacco) to seven or eight feet in height.
It bears numerous leaves of a pale green color sessile, ovate lanceolate and pointed in form, which come out alternately from two to three inches apart. The flowers grow in loose panicles at the extremity of the stalks, and the calyx is bell-shaped, and divided at its summit into five pointed segments.
The tube of the corolla expands at the top into an oblong cup terminating in a 5-lobed plaited rose-colored border. The pistil consists of an oval germ, a slender style longer than the stamen, and a cleft stigma. The flowers are succeeded by capsules of 2 cells opening at the summit and containing numerous kidney-shaped seeds."
Two of the finest varieties of Nicotiana Tobacum that are cultivated are the Oronoco and the Sweet Scented;
they differ only in the form of the leaves, those of the latter variety being shorter and broader than the other.
They are annual herbaceous plants, rising with strong erect stems to the height of from six to nine feet, withfine handsome foliage. The stalk near the root is often an inch or more in diameter, and surrounded by a hairy clammy substance, of a greenish yellow color. The leaves are of a light green; they grow alternately, at intervals of two or three inches on the stalk; they are oblong and spear-shaped; those lowest on the stalk are about twenty inches in length, and they decrease as they ascend.
The young leaves when about six inches, are of a deep green color and rather smooth, and as they approach maturity they become yellowish and rougher on the surface. The flowers grow in clusters from the extremities of the stalk; they are yellow externally and of a delicate red within. They are succeeded by kidney shaped capsules of a brown color.


Tobacco leaves

Typical mosaic pattern on flue-cured tobacco leaves systematically infected with Tobacco mosaic virus.

Photograph courtesy H. D. Shew,
from the Compendium of Tobacco Diseases

The Plant bears from eight to twenty leaves according to the species of the plant. They have various forms, ovate, lanceolate, and pointed. Leaves of a lanceolate form are the largest, and the shape of those found on most varieties of the American plant. The color of the leaves when growing, as well as after curing and sweating, varies, and is frequently caused by the condition of the soil. The color while growing may be either a light or dark green, which changes to a yellowish cast as the plant matures and ripens.
The ground leaves are of a lighter color and ripen earlier than the rest--sometimes turning yellow, and during damp weather rotting and dropping from the stalk. Some varieties of the plant, like Latakia, bear small but thick leaves, which after cutting are very thin and fine in texture; while others, like Connecticut seed leaf and Havana, bear leaves of a
medium thickness, which are also fine and silky after curing. But while the color of the plant when growing is either a light or dark green, it rapidly changes during curing, and especially after passing through the sweat, changing to a light or dark cinnamon like Connecticut seed leaf, black like Holland and Perique tobacco, bright yellow of the finest shade of Virginia and Carolina leaf, brown like Sumatra, or dark red like that known by the name of "Boshibaghli," grown in Asia Minor.

The leaves are covered with glandular hairs
containing a glutinous substance of an unpleasant odor, which characterizes all varieties as well as nearly all parts of the plant.
The leaves of all varieties of tobacco grow the entire length of the stem and clasp the stalk, excepting those ofSyrian, which are attached by a long stem. The size of the leaves, as well as the entire plant, is now muchlarger than when first discovered. One of the early voyagers describes the plant as short and bearing leaves ofabout the size and shape of the walnut. In many varieties the leaves grow in a semi-circular form while inothers they grow almost straight and still others growing erect presenting a singular appearance.
The stem or mid-rib running through the leaf is large and fibrous and its numerous smaller veins proportionally larger which on curing become smaller and particularly in those kinds best adapted for cigar wrappers.
The leaves from the base to the center of the plant are of about equal size but are smaller as they reach the summit, but after topping attain about the same size as the others. The color of the leaf after curing may be determined by the color of the leaf while growing--if dark green while maturing in the field, the color will be dark after curing and sweating and the reverse if of a lighter shade of green.
If the soil be dark the color of the leaf will be darker than if grown upon a light loam. Some varieties of the plant have leaves of a smooth glossy appearance while others are rough and the surface uneven--more like a cabbage leaf, a peculiar feature of the tobacco of Syria. The kind of fertilizers applied to the soil also in a measure as well as the soil itself has much to do with the texture or body of the leaf and should be duly considered by all growers of the plant.
A light moist loam should be chosen for the tobacco field if a leaf of
light color and texture is desired while if a dark leaf is preferred the soil chosen should be a moist heavy loam.