tobacco

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  Tools used in the cultivation of tobacco over 300 years ago. These tools—hoe, billhook, and cutting knives—were excavated at Jamestown
• WordNet 3.6
  • n tobacco leaves of the tobacco plant dried and prepared for smoking or ingestion
  • n tobacco aromatic annual or perennial herbs and shrubs
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Additional illustrations & photos:

Harvesting tobacco at Jamestown, about 1650. (Painting by Sidney E. King.)

Tobacco Plant

Loading Tobacco

PLANTING TOBACCO

TOBACCO FARM AND DWELLING

WETTING THE TOBACCO LEAF

TOBACCO DRYING HOUSE

BALING TOBACCO

• Interesting fact: Tobacco contains over 50 chemicals that can cause cancer
• • Tobacco (Bot) An American plant (Nicotiana Tabacum) of the Nightshade family, much used for smoking and chewing, and as snuff. As a medicine, it is narcotic, emetic, and cathartic. Tobacco has a strong, peculiar smell, and an acrid taste.
  • Tobacco The leaves of the plant prepared for smoking, chewing, etc., by being dried, cured, and manufactured in various ways.
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• Interesting fact: Tobacco kills more Americans each year than alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire and AIDS combined
• • n tobacco The mouse-ear everlasting, Antennaria plantaginifolia.
  • n tobacco a variety with a broad, short leaf grown in two counties in Indiana, used for making common cigars.
  • n tobacco In Queensland, the name is also applied to the pituri, Duboisia Hopwoodii. See pituri.
  • n tobacco In Tasmania, a shrub of the aster family, Cassinia spectabilis.
  • n tobacco A commercial subdivision of the white Burley (see below) consisting of the darker, heavier leaves.
  • n tobacco Sometimes a brand of tobacco (see return, n., 5). One such is known as bird's-eye returns.
  • n tobacco A plant of the genus Nicotiana, particularly one of several species affording the narcotic product of the same name. The most generally cultivated is N. Tabacum, a plant of South American origin, found in culture among the aborigines. It is of stately habit, 3 to 6 feet high; the leaves from ovate to narrowly lanceolate, the lower commonly 2 or 3 feet long; the flowers of purplish tints, 2 inches long, disposed in a terminal panicle. (See cut under Nicotiana.) Prominent cultivated forms are the vari ety macrophylla, known as Maryland tobacco, to which the Cuban and Manila tobaccos are accredited, and the variety angustifolia, Virginian tobacco. The only other species extensively grown is N. rustica, a much smaller plant with smaller greenish flowers, sometimes called green tobaeco from the fact that the leaves retain much of their color when dry. It is suited to cool latitudes, and cultivated northward in Europe and in parts of Asia, yielding among others the Hungarian and Turkish tobaccos. N. quadrivalvis is grown by the Indians from Oregon to the Missouri river, and is their favorite kind, a low-branching, viscid-pubescent plant a foot high- Some other species are cultivated locally. The United States leads in the production of tobacco, but it is grown more or less in nearly all temperate and tropical lands. The quality depends greatly on climate, the Cuban or other fine varieties degenerating when planted elsewhere. Cuban tobacco is considered finest, that of Manila being named with it. Turkish tobaccos are famous, as also the Latakia of a district in northern Syria, Virginian tobacco ranks very high.
  • n tobacco The leaves of the tobacco-plant prepared in various forms, to be smoked, chewed, or used as snuff (see Snuff). Tobacco-leaves are sometimes gathered singly; more commonly the stalks are cut, and suspended on sticks under shelter lor drying, which requires several weeks. The leaves are then stripped and sorted, tied in bundles called hands, and “bulked” in compact circular heaps to secure a slight fermentation, which develops the properties valued; they are then packed for the manufacturer, who makes them into cigars, cheroots, cigarettes, and cut, plug, and roll tobacco, intended for smoking and chewing, and into snuff. The properties of tobacco are chiefly due to the alkaloid nicotine (which see). Medically considered, tobacco is a powerful sedative poison and a local stimulant, not now used internally unless in chronic asthma, but applied in some skin-diseases, hemorrhoids, etc. In its ordinary use as a narcotic it induces a physical and mental quiet very gratifying to the habituated, overcoming the distaste for its obnoxious properties, and making it the most nearly universal of narcotics. In large quantities it gives rise to confusion of the mind, vertigo, nausea, and at length to depression and dangerous prostration. Historically, tobacco was found in use among the Indians at the discovery of America, and associated with their solemn transactions. (See calumet.) It was unknown in the Old World before this time. It was introduced into Europe about 1559 by a Spanish physician, who brought a small quantity from America into Spain and Portugal. Thence its use spread into France and Italy. Sir Francis Drake introduced it into England about 1585, where tobacco-taverns soon became nearly as prevalent as ale-houses. Itsusewas opposed strongly by both priests and rulers. Pope Urban VIII. excommunicated users of tobacco; in Turkey and other countries its use was severely punished. The “Counterblast” of James I. of England is matter of history. The use of tobacco spread, however, in the face of all prohibitions.
  • n tobacco Same as Indian tobacco. See above.
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• Interesting fact: From the 1500's to the 1700's, tobacco was prescribed by doctors to treat a variety of ailments including headaches, toothaches, arthritis and bad breath.
• • n Tobacco to-bak′ō a plant of genus Nicotiana, order Solanaceæ, esp. one of several species, the most generally cultivated being the stately Nicotiana Tabacum, a native of America—the dried leaves used for the sedative effects for smoking in pipes, &c., and also in the form of snuff
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• Frederic Auguste Bartholdi

  

  “America is an adorable woman chewing tobacco.”
• William Faulkner

  

  “The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.”
• Robert E. Lee

  

  “I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.”
• George Eliot

  

  “Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.”
• Bob Dole

  

  “We know [smoking tobacco] is not good for kids, but a lot of other things aren't good. Drinking's not good. Some would say milk's not good.”
• Moliere

  

  “There's nothing quite like tobacco: it's the passion of decent folk, and whoever lives without tobacco doesn't deserve to live.”

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