in twists or rolls of the natural leaf or is cut fine and put up in small packages. Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata) has nothing in common with this subject. See Lobelia.
Tobacco has been used as a sedative or narcotic over a larger area and among a greater number of people than any similar substance, opium ranking next, and hemp third. Tobacco leaves, when submitted to chemical analysis, yield nicotine (q.v.), which is its most characteristic constituent, albumen, a gluten-like substance, gum, resin, malic and citric acids, and a large amount of inorganic constituents, 100 parts of the dry leaf yielding from about 19 to 27 per cent. of ash, in which potash, lime, and silica preponderate. Nicotine, the alkaloid contained in tobacco and considered a violent poison, does not appear in tobacco smoke. It is split into pyridine and collodine. Of these the latter is said to be the less active and to preponderate in cigar smoke, while the smoke from pipes contains a larger amount of pyridine. If tobacco possesses, like alcohol, opium, tea, coffee, etc., the power of arresting oxidation of the living tissues, and thus checking their disintegration, it follows that the habit of smoking must be most deleterious to the young, causing in them impairment of growth, premature manhood, and physical degradation. Before the full maturity of the system is attained, even the smallest amount of smoking is hurtful; subsequently, the habit is generally prejudicial. Smoked just after a meal a cigar is said to act as a digestive stimulant, and as a food when other forms of nourishment are not procurable. In some persons smoking increases, in others diminishes mental activity. Chewing is considered the most deleterious form in which to use tobacco. The different kinds of tobacco exert a different influence on the smoker according to the amount of noxious ingredients which they contain. Those which yield a small proportion are termed mild tobaccos.
Tobacco has been used in medicine with the view of relaxing the muscular fibres, in cases of strangulated hernia, intestinal obstruction, asthma, strychnine poisoning, tetanus, etc.; but is no longer so employed on account of its dangerous depressant action.
Consult: Killebrew and Myrick, Tobacco, Its Culture, Cure, Marketing, and Manufacture (New York, 1897); Lock, Tobacco Growing, Curing, and Manufacture (London, 1886); Senseney, Tobacco from the Seed to the Warehouse (Chambersburg, Pa., 1878); United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, Farmers' Bulletin No. 60, Methods of Curing Tobacco; No. 83, Tobacco Soils; No. 120, Insects Affecting Tobacco; Division of Soils, Report No. 62, Cultivation for Cigar Leaf Tobacco in Florida; No. 63, Work of the Agricultural Experiment Stations on Tobacco; Arnold, History of the Tobacco Industry in Virginia (Baltimore, 1897); A. M. and J. Ferguson, All About Tobacco, Including Practical Instruction in Planting, Cultivating, and Curing (Colombo, Ceylon, 1889); Ragland, Tobacco. How to Raise It and How to Make It Pay (Hyso, Va., 1895); Sim, Tobacco From Seed Bed to Packing Case (Etiwanda, Cal., 1897).
TOBACCO-BOX SKATE. The common small American skate (Raja erinacea). See Plate of Rays and Skates.
TOBACCO-HEART. A name used of the cardiac condition occurring in many persons who use tobacco to excess. Irregularity of action and debility are the chief symptoms. See Tobacco.
TOBACCO PESTS. The tobacco flea-beetle (Epitrix parvula) is generally distributed throughout the United States. It is a minute, oval, reddish-brown species occurring upon many solanaceous plants, which makes its appearance in July, attacking the tobacco leaves, which soon present a spotted appearance. Afterwards these spots become holes and the leaf is practically destroyed. In the larval state the insect feeds upon the roots. The small holes eaten by the beetles become the entrance points of bacteria, which start a leaf-disease which may be more injurious to the plant than the actual work of the beetles.
TOBACCO BEETLES.
a, tobacco flea-beetle (Epitrix parvula), greatly enlarged; b, leaves, as damaged by this flea-beetle; c, green bug (Euschistus variolarius).
The so-called horn-worms, or ‘horn-blowers,’ of tobacco are the larvæ of two sphingid moths (Protoparce carolina and Phlegethontius celeus), large green caterpillars with oblique white stripes on the sides of the body, and the anal end of the body armed with a horn. These larvæ live upon tobacco leaves, transform to pupæ under the ground, and the moths issue in May or June.
TOBACCO BUDWORMS.
a, moth of the true budworm (Heliothis rhexiæ); b, caterpillar of same; c, buds injured by false budworm (Heliothis armiger).
The eggs are laid singly on the under side of the tobacco leaf just at nightfall. There are two generations each summer in a large part of the tobacco-growing region. Two insects, both larvæ of noctuid moths, are known as ‘bud-worms’ in tobacco fields. They are Heliothis armiger (also known as ‘boll-worm’ (q.v.), corn-ear worm, and tomato fruit-worm), which preferably lives in the ears of
