mmercially known as "Key West."

In some parts of Mexico a fine-flavored tobacco is grown, but as the
cigars are not uniform in quality they are not popular. Some of the
Brazilian tobacco is a high-class product, but not much is exported.
Porto Rican leaf has a fine flavor, but is not popular because of its
dark color. The demand for it in the United States is growing, however.
Of the leaf grown in the East, that from Sumatra and the Philippine
Islands is by far the best, and the exports are heavy. Cuban
manufacturers purchase the Manila leaf; the Sumatra wrappers are
purchased in the United States.

The choicest cigarette-tobacco is grown in Asiatic Turkey,
Transcaucasia, and Egypt. It is selected with great care, and is
"long-cut." The common grades are made of chopped Virginia tobacco, or
of chopped cigar-trimmings. The cheapest grades consist of refuse leaf
mixed with half-smoked cigar-stumps. The United States leads in the
manufacture of cigarettes, and a large part of the product is sold in
China, India, and Japan. Most of the world's product of snuff is made in
the United States, and nearly all of it is sold abroad.

The United States produces yearly about seven hundred million pounds. A
large part of this is sold to European countries. Great Britain
purchases about four-fifths of the tobacco there consumed from the
United States. The latter country purchases from Europe (mainly the
Netherlands) about half as much as it sells to Europe. Louisville, Ky.,
is probably the largest tobacco-market in the world. New York,
Baltimore, Richmond, Manila, and Havana are the chief shipping-ports.

In almost every civilized country tobacco is heavily taxed. In the
United States there is not only a heavy import duty, but an internal
revenue in addition. In Austria, France, Italy, Japan, and Spain the
manufacture and sale is in the hands of the government. The consumption
of tobacco varies greatly. In the Netherlands it averages about seven
pounds a year to each individual; in the United States it is more than
four pounds; in central Europe, three pounds; in Spain, Sweden, Great
Britain, and Italy, it is less than two pounds.

=Opium.=--The opium of commerce is the hardened juice obtained from the
seed capsules of several species of the poppy-plant. A variety having a
large capsule (_Papaver somniferum_) is most commonly cultivated for the
commercial production of the substance. Half-a-dozen times during the
season the caps