Growing and Processing Tobacco at Home A Guide for Gardeners By Jim Johnson A message from Jim Johnson, President Seedman.com Dear friend, I hope that you find the enclosed information useful. I came up with this guide because I sensed a need for our general population to become more informed about the Tobacco plant. For too long, most of us have only heard the negative side. I hope that after reading this material, you will be able to form an opinion based on the plants merits rather than its clouded reputation. I also wanted to present an option to those who are tired of the ever increasing taxes placed on tobacco products and to those who are worried about the chemical additives that are now present in most forms of commercially raised tobacco. By raising your own tobacco products at home, you can alleviate these concerns. The most important benefit from raising your own tobacco is the quality of tobacco that you will have to enjoy. Today's commercial tobacco products are loaded with chemicals and fillers and non-tobacco products. Your first all natural cigar or cigarette will be a pleasure you will not forget. I also wanted to point out other uses for the plant. It makes a very attractive ornamental plant that often has fragrant flowers. It should be raised in every garden for its ornamental appeal. It also makes one of the best natural biodegradable pesticides that can be found. By using a pesticide made of tobacco juice or dust, you can prevent the use of harsh synthetic chemicals in our environment. All tobacco plants can be raised inside in containers. Most will flower when only a foot tall. Tobacco plants also make stunning border plants for flower beds and gardens. I hope you enjoy this guide and wish you good luck with your tobacco growing. A Little Tobacco History How old is tobacco? No one really knows, but scientists speculate that the tobacco plant began growing in the Americas somewhere around 5000-6000 BCE. The first ever recorded proof of tobacco smoking comes from a piece of pottery dated before the 11th century. On it a Maya is depicted smoking a roll of tobacco leaves tied with a string. In 1492, Christopher Columbus set foot on the New World for the first time in the Bahamas. The native Arawak Indians offered the white men gifts of fruits, wooden spears and "certain dried leaves which gave off a distinct fragrance". Columbus accepted the gifts and brought them back to his ship. The fruit was eaten, but the strange leaves were thrown away. However, during his second voyage to the New World in 1493, he documents the use of tobacco by the natives. When Cortez couquers the Aztec capital in 1519, he reports on the Mexican natives smoking cigarettes. It is commonly believed that the first tobacco plants are introduced to Cuba and Santo Domingo in the early 1530's. By 1548, Brazil is cultivating tobacco for commercial export. In 1560, Jean Nicot de Villemain, France's ambassador to Portugal, writes of tobacco's many uses and medicinal properties, and sends the first plants to France ( later the botanical labeling of nictotinia would result from this ). It is beleived that tobacco first reached England in 1565, and is introduced by Sir John Hawkins. The use of tobacco by his crew and other sailing crews was becomign quite common at this time. But history seems to credit Sir Francis Drake with introducing Nicotina tobacum in 1573. German Doctor Michael Bernhard Valentini wrote a book of exotic remedies in 1571, listing tobacco as being a treatment for dysentery, hysteria, colic and hernia. The same year, a Spanish doctor in Seville reports that tobacco is the newest health craze among Spanish doctors, citing 36 ailments that could be cured by tobacco. Tobacco is soon grown everywhere in Spain. English doctors soon follow suit and recommend tobacco for a number of ailments. The first book in the English language devoted to the subject of tobacco was anonymously published in 1595, by Anthony Chute. It has the simple title "Tabacco," and contains an illustration of an Englishman smoking a clay pipe. In this little work for laymen, the author earnestly urged smokers not to abuse the kindly weed, upheld its medicinal uses, and suggested that physicians were trying to keep smoking a secret among themselves. The reason was, he said, that a moderate use of the pipe was of such value in preserving health that it was likely to make physicians unnecessary! from Early Literature of TOBACCO by George Arents In 1603, England Physicians are upset that tobacco is freely available without a prescription. 1604: "A Counterblaste to Tobacco" "Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." -- James I of England, "A Counterblaste to Tobacco." In his treatise, James also noted that autopsies found smokers' "inward parts" were "infected with an oily kind of soot." James also said if he ever had the Devil to dinner, he'd offer him a pipe. With regards to second-hand smoke, James said, " "The wife must either take up smoking or resolve to live in a perpetual stinking torment. 3 On the other hand, James' was the first government to find taxes on tobacco to be enormously profitable. Trying to stamp out smoking, he first increased taxes on tobacco 4,000%, from 2 pence/pound to six shillings, 8 pence/pound. That stopped people from buying tobacco, but dried up the funds that had been coming into the Treasury. James then slashed taxes down to 2 shillings/pound and watched the money pour in. Other governments were quick to learn the same lesson. The first know commerical crop of tobacco is grown in Virginia by John Rolfe in 1612. Two years later, the first sale of native Virginia tobacco is sold in England. This allows the young Virginia colony to enter the world tobacco market, which is now dominated by Spain. King Philip III of Spain, in order to control tobacco, requires that tobacco only be grown in certain regions ( i.e. Cuba, Santo Domingo, Venezuela and Puerto Rico ) and shipped to a central location in Seville. This causes Seville to become the world center for production of cigars. Tobacco use is widely spread in England at this time and it said that there were over 7,000 shops in England that carried tobacco in and about London. King James I, who opposes tobacco, realizes the potential in controling this market and makes the import of tobacco a Royal monopoly, available for a yearly fee of 14,000. ( Boy, talk about history repeating itself, our modern day politicians rant and rave against tobacco, but are quite happy to accept the tax money gained from it and would never dare destroy the tobacco market ). This is not to say that some countries did not take a different stance during this period. The Mongolian Emperor places a death penalty on using tobacco in 1617 and Japan prohibited tobacco entirely in 1621. In 1633 Turkey Sultan Murad IV orders tobacco users executed as infidels, and as many as 18 a day were 4 executed. Also, around this time, Russian Czar Alexis creates penalties for smoking. The 1st offense is whipping, a slit nose, and trasportation to Siberia. 2nd offense is execution. In China, the use or distribution of tobacco is made a crime punishable by decapitation. Heavy restrictions are placed on tobacco in France, but in 1637 King Louis XIII decides that he actually enjoys snuff and repeals restricions on its use. In 1619, The first shipment of women, meant to become wives for the settlers of Jamestown, arrives. A prospective husband must pay for his chosen mate's passage with 120 lbs. of tobacco. This same year, the first representative legislative assembly in America is held. The Virginia Colony's General Assembly's ( the beginning of self-goverment in North America ) first law is passed concerning the economics of the tobacco trade: tobacco shall not be sold for under 3 shillings per pound. However, by the following year, tobacco is in such heavy production in the colonies, and quality has decreased to such levels that the colonists were barely able to get this much per pound. Lucklily for the colonists, a trade agreement was worked out with the Royal Crown that bans the commercial growing of Tobacco in England in return for a one shilling per pound duty on Virginia grown tobacco. In 1624 Pope Urban VIII threatens excommunication for snuff users; as sneezing is thought to be too close to sexual ecstasy. Around 1632, tobacco regulation begins in North America, as Massachusetts forbids public smoking. Fifthteen years later, the Colony of Connecticut bans public smoking: citizens may smoke only once a day, "and then not in company with any other." In 1650, the same Colony of Connecticut General Court orders that there will be no smoking by any person under the age of 21, and no smoking period, except with physicians order. In 1666 Maryland faces a severe oversupply of tobacco and bans production of tobacco for one year. The tobacco ban is lifted in Russia by in 1676 and Peter the Great later Advocates smoking and establishes a trade monopoly with England. By the early 1700's, tobacco use is in wide use throughout the trading countries of the world. By 1727, Tobacco had become such an important part of the Virgina ecomomy that "Tobacco notes" Become Legal Tender in Virginia.