Читать книгу Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce - E. R. Billings - Страница 9

The offshoots or suckers as they are termed, make their appearance at the junction of the leaves and stalk, about the roots of the plant, the result of that vigorous growth caused by topping. The suckers can hardly be seen until after the plant has been topped, when they come forward rapidly and in a short time develop into strong, vigorous shoots. Tatham describing the sucker says:

"The sucker is a superfluous sprout which is wont to make its appearance and shoot forth from the stem or stalk, near to the junction of the leaves with the stems, and about the root of the plant, and if allowed to grow, injuring the marketable quality of the tobacco by compelling a division of its nutriment during the act of maturation. The planter is therefore careful to destroy these intruders with the thumb nail, as in the act of topping. This superfluity of vegetation, like that of the top, has been often the subject of legislative care; and the policy of supporting the good name of the Virginia produce has dictated the wisdom of penal laws to maintain her good faith against imposition upon strangers who trade with her."

The ripening of the suckers not only proves injurious to the quality of the leaf but retards their size and maturity and if allowed to continue, prevents them from attaining their largest possible growth.

Suckers.

On large, strong, growing plants the growth of suckers is very rank after attaining a length of from six to ten inches, and when fully grown bearing flowers like the parent stalk. After growing for a length of time they become tough and attached so firmly to the stem of the leaf and stalk that they are broken off with difficulty, frequently detaching the leaf with them. The growth of the suckers, however, determines the quality as well as the maturity of the plants.

Weak, spindling plants rarely produce large, vigorous shoots, the leaves of such suckers are generally small and of a yellowish color. When the plants are fully ripe and ready to harvest the suckers will be found to be growing vigorously around the root of the plant. This is doubtless the best evidence of its maturity, more reliable by far than any other as it denotes the ripening of the entire plant. Suckering the plants hastens the ripening of the leaves, and gives a lighter shade of color, no matter on what soil the plants are grown. Having treated at some length of the various parts of the tobacco plant—stalk, leaves, flowers, capsules and suckers we come now to its nicotine properties. The tobacco plant, as is well known, produces a virulent poison known as Nicotine. This property, however, as well as others as violent is found in many articles of food, including the potato together with its stalk and leaves; the effects of which may be experienced by chewing a small quantity of the latter. The New Edinburgh Encyclopedia says:

"The peculiar effect produced by using tobacco bears some resemblance to intoxication and is excited by an essential oil which in its pure state is so powerful as to destroy life even in very minute quantity."

Chemistry has taught us that nicotine is only one among many principles which are contained in the plant. It is supposed by many but not substantiated by chemical research that nicotine is not the flavoring agent which gives tobacco its essential and peculiar varieties of odor. Such are most probably given by the essential oils, which vary in amount in different species of the plant.

An English writer says:

"Nicotine is disagreeable to the habitual smoker, as is proved by the increased demand for clean pipes or which by some mechanical contrivance get rid of the nicotine."

The late Dr. Blotin tested by numerous experiments the effects of nicotine on the various parts of the organization of man. While the physiological effects of nicotine may be interesting to the medical practitioner, they will hardly interest the general reader unless it can be shown that the effects of nicotine and tobacco should be proved to be identical.

We are loth to leave this subject, however, as it is so intimately connected with the history of the plant, without treating somewhat of its medicinal properties which to many are of more interest than its social qualities. The Indians not only used the plant socially, religiously, but medicinally. Their Medicine men prescribed its use in various ways for most diseases common among them. The use thus made of the plant attracted the attention of the Spanish and English, far more than its use either as a means of enjoyment or as a religious act. When introduced to the Old World, its claims as a remedy for most diseases gave it its popularity and served to increase its use. It was styled "Sana sancta Indorum—" "Herbe propre à tous maux," and physicians claimed that it was "the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth tendered to the use of man." As early as 1610, three years after the London and Plymouth Companies settled in Virginia, and some years before it began to be cultivated by them as an article of export, it had attracted the attention of English physicians, who seemed to take as much delight in writing of the sanitary uses of the herb as they did in smoking the balmy leaves of the plant.

Dr. Edmund Gardiner, "Practitioner of Physicke," issued in 1610 a volume entitled, "The Triall of Tobacco," setting forth its curative powers. Speaking of its use he says:

"Tobacco is not violent, and therefore may in my judgement bee safely put in practise. Thus then you plainly see that all medicines, and especially tobacco, being rightly and rationally used, is a noble medicine and contrariwise not in his due time with other circumstances considered, it doth no more than a nobleman's shooe doth in healing the gout in the foot."

Dr. Verner of Bath, in his Treatise concerning the taking the fume of tobacco (1637) says that when "taken moderately and at fixed times with its proper adjunct, which (as they doe suppose) is a cup of sack, they think it be no bad physick." Dr. William Barclay in his work on Tobacco, (1614) declares "that it worketh wonderous cures." He not only defends the herb but the "land where it groweth." At this time the tobacco plant like Indian Corn was very small, possessing but few of the qualities now required to make it merchantable. When first exported to Spain and Portugal from the West Indies and South America, and even by the English from Virginia, the leaf was dark in color and strong and rank in flavor. This, however, seems to have been the standard in regard to some varieties while others are spoken of by some of the early writers upon tobacco as "sweet."

The tobacco (uppowoc) grown by the Indians in America, at the time of its discovery, and more particularly in North America, would compare better with the suckers of the largest varieties of the plant rather than with even the smallest species of the plant now cultivated. At the present time tobacco culture is considered a science in order to secure the colors in demand, and that are fashionable, and also the right texture of leaf now so desirable in all tobaccos designed for wrappers. Could the Indians, who cultivated the plant on the banks of the James, the Amazon and other rivers of America, now look upon the plant growing in rare luxuriance upon the same fields where they first raised it, they could hardly realize them to be the same varieties that they had previously planted.[Back to Contents]