of inhaling the fumes of the leaf through a Y-shaped device applied to the nostrils.  This operation is said to have produced intoxication and stupefaction, which appears to have been the desired result.  The old name still continues in Cuba, and if a smoker wants a cigar, he will get it by calling for a “tobacco.”  The production of the plant is, next to sugar, Cuba’s most important commercial industry.  Its early history is only imperfectly known.  There was probably very little commercial production during the 16th Century, for the reason that there was then no demand for it.  The demand came in the first half of the 17th Century, and by the middle of that period tobacco was known and used in practically all civilized countries.  The demand for it spread very rapidly, in spite of papal fulminations and penal enactments.  For a time, in Russia, the noses of smokers were cut off.  The early part of the 18th Century saw Cuba actively engaged in production and shipment.  In 1717, Cuba’s tobacco was made a monopoly of the Spanish Government.  Under that system, production was regulated and prices were fixed by the agents of the government, in utter disregard of the welfare of the producers.  As a result, several serious riots occurred.  In 1723, a large number of planters refused to accept the terms offered by the officials, and destroyed the crops of those who did accept, a condition repeated in the State of Kentucky a few years ago, the only difference being that in the Cuban experience the monopolist was the Government, and in Kentucky it was a corporation.  A few years later, in 1734, the Cuban monopoly was sold to Don Jose Tallapiedra who contracted to ship to Spain, annually, three million pounds of tobacco.  The contract was afterward given to another, but control was resumed by the Crown, in 1760.  Finally, in 1817, cultivation and trade were declared to be free, subject only to taxation.

[Illustration:  STREET IN CAMAGUEY]

In time, it became known that the choicest tobacco in the market came from the western end of Cuba, from the Province of Pinar del Rio.  It was given a distinct name, Vuelta Abajo, a term variously translated but referring to the downward bend of the section of the island in which that grade is produced.  Here is grown a tobacco that, thus far, has been impossible of production elsewhere.  Many experiments have been tried, in Cuba and in other countries.  Soils have been analyzed by chemists; seeds from the Vuelta Abajo have been planted; and localities have been sought where climatic conditions corresponded.  No success has been attained.  Nor is the crop of that region produced on an extensive scale, that is, the choicer leaf.  Not all of the tobacco is of the finest grade, although most of it is of high quality.  There are what may be called “patches” of ground, known to the experts, on which the best is produced, for reasons not yet clearly determined.  The fact is well known, but the causes are somewhat