Notes and Queries, Number 40, August 3, 1850 by Various
page 42 of 69 (60%)
page 42 of 69 (60%)
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Dr. Bigelow (_American Botany_, 4to., vol. ii. p. 171.) tells us that
_Nicot. fructicosa_ is said to have been cultivated in the East prior to the discovery of America. Linnæus sets down the same as a native of China and the Cape of Good Hope. Sir G. Staunton says that there is no traditional account of the introduction of tobacco into China; nor is there any account of its introduction into India[2]; though, according to Barrow, the time when the cotton plant was introduced into the southern provinces of China is noted in their annals. Bell of Antermony, who was in China in 1721, says, "It is reported the Chinese have had the use of tobacco for many ages," &c.--_Travels_, vol. ii. p. 73., Lond. ed. 4to. 1763. Ledyard says, the Tartars have smoked from remote antiquity (_Travels_, 326.). Du Halde speaks of tobacco as one of the natural productions of Formosa, whence it was largely imported by the Chinese (p. 173. Lond. ed. 8vo. 1741). The prevalence of the practice of smoking at an early period among the Chinese is appealed to by Pallas as one evidence that in Asia, and especially in China, the use of tobacco for smoking is more ancient than the discovery of the New World. (See _Asiat. Journ_., vol. xxii. p. 137.) The Koreans say they received tobacco from Japan, as also instructions for its cultivation, about the latter end of the sixteenth century. (Authority, I think, Hamel's _Travels, Pink. Coll._, vii. 532.) Loureiro states that in Cochin China tobacco is indigenous, and has its proper vernacular name. |
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