as compared with the other organic elements, yet
we are inclined to think that the diminished proportion of nicotin in
the best varieties in the cause of their superior flavor to the rank
Northern tobaccoes, and that it is mainly because they are milder that
they are most esteemed. So, too, the cigar improves with age, because
a certain amount of nicotin evaporates and escapes. Taste in cigars
varies, however, from the Austrian government article, a very rank
"long-nine," with a straw running through the centre to improve its
suction, to the Cuban _cigarrito_, whose ethereal proportions three
whiffs will exhaust.

The manufacture of smoking-tobaccoes is as much and art in Germany as
getting up a fancy brand of cigars is here; and the medical philosopher
of that country will gravely debate whether "Kanaster" or "Varinas" be
best suited for certain forms of convalescence; tobacco being almost
as indispensable as gruel, in returning health. We think the
light pipe-smoker will find a combination of German and Turkish
smoking-tobaccoes a happy thought. The old smoker may secure the best
union of delicacy and strength in the Virginia "natural leaf."

Among the eight or ten species of the tobacco-plant now recognized by
botanists, the _Nicotiana tabacum_ and the _Nicotiana rustica_ hold the
chief place. Numerous varieties of each of these, however, are named and
exist.

We condense from De Bow's "Industrial Resources of the South and West" a
brief account of tobacco-culture in this country. "The tobacco is best
sown from the 10th to the 20th of March, and a rich loam is the most
favorable soil. The plants are dressed with a mixture of ashes, plaster,
soot, salt, sulphur, soil, and manure." After they are transplanted,
we are told that "the soil best adapted to the growth of tobacco is a
light, friable one, or what is commonly called a sandy loam; not too
flat, but rolling, undulating land." Long processes of hand-weeding must
be gone through, and equal parts of plaster and ashes are put on each
plant. "Worms are the worst enemy," and can be effectually destroyed
only by hand. "When the plant begins to yellow, it is time to put it
away; and it is cut off close to the ground." After wilting a little on
the ground, it is dried on sticks, by one of the three processes called
"pegging, spearing, and splitting." "When dry, the leaves are stripped
off and tied in bundles of one fifth or sixth of a pound each. It is
sorted into th