AN ADVICE HOW TO PLANT TOBACCO IN ENGLAND: AND How to bring it to colour and perfection, to whom it may be profitable, and to whom harmful.  
The virtues of the Herb in general, as well in the outward application as taken in FUME.  
WITH THE DANGER OF THE SPANISH TOBACCO.  
Written by C. T.  
LONDON, Printed by NICHOLAS OKES, and are to be sold by WALTER BURRE. 1615.   

AN ADVICE HOW TO PLANT TOBACCO IN ENGLAND, AND HOW TO BRING IT TO THE COLOUR AND PERfection, to whom it may be profitable, and to whom harmful.  
I Have heard it reported, by men of good judgement, that there is paid out of England and Ireland, near the value of two hundred thousand pounds every year for Tobacco; and that the greatest part thereof is bought for ready money. Sure I am, that when our Englishmen for these seven or eight years last passed, traded for it at Trinidado, or in Orenoque, that great store of Gold, Silver, Coin, and plate was carried hence, and given to the Spaniard there in exchange. For so greedy were our English of the Indian Tobacco; as where in the beginning of our traffic there, some years since, the Spaniards (as in all new plantations) were priest with all sorts of wants; & had neither clothes to cover them, nor shoes to tread on, nor bread to eat; and did therefore exchange their Tobacco for Fish, Wine, Aquavitae, all sorts of lasting food, for woollen stockings, hats, thread, hatchets, & the like: they became in a short time so cloyed with all these commodities, as nothing (some Silks, and Cloth of Silver and Gold excepted) but ready Money, and Silver plate could content them.  
This Trade therefore, where the Treasure of this land is vented for smoke, cannot but greatly prejudice the Commonweal: which although it were in some sort tolerable, by reason that many ships and Mariners were employed, and that thereby we kept our knowledge of the West Indies, and bred many sufficient Mariners: yet seeing the Spaniards have now utterly banished our Merchants, and put all to the sword, or to a more cruel death, which they can master, or betray in those parts: I have thought good, as well for the keeping within the Land of the Treasure before spoken of, then carried into the Indies, and now into Spain, as for other respects hereafter remembered; to instruct those of our Nation how to sow, plant and perfect this drug.  
For besides the ill exchange made for this fantastical merchandise, and beside, the extreme rate, and price of the Indian Tobacco; of which the greatest part is sold for ten times the value of pepper, and the best of it, weight for weight, for the finest silver; it is hard to find one pound weight in five hundred, that is not sophisticate. The black colour which it hath, and for which our Shoppe-keepers praise it, is Artificial: yea all the Tobacco (the leaves of Hispaniola excepted, which we call Saint Domingo Tobacco) is nointed and slubbered over with a kind of juice, or syrup, made of Salt-water, of the dregs or filth of Sugar, called Malasses, or black honey, Guiana pepper, and leeze of Wine; to which in some places they add a red berry called Anotto, and other tawni Berries, with which the Indians paint their bodies, and their beds. This they do to give it colour and gloss, to make it the more merchantable, and to give one and the same countenance to all their rotten, withered, & ground-leaves, which they wrap up in the middle of their wreaths, covering them over on the outside with one that is good.  
Of this Tobacco, painted with unwholesome Berries, there hath been great store brought into England of late, in which the redness and Art was manifest: so hath there been vented a kind of filthy leaf, sold by the Portugals residing in London, the same being made up in rolls of pounds and half pounds.  
By these Aditaments is the nature and operation of the Tobacco changed, and the Herb made unhealthful, and extreme dangerous: for it is well known, that how wholesome and medicinable soever honey itself may be, yet the water of honey is stark poison; and although Indian Pepper, scum of Sugar, or the dregs or leeze of Wine, and the rest, may be wholesome enough some way used: yet to take them into the head in fume, cannot but be greatly offensive and prejudicial. But this is not the worst: for since the Spaniards have observed, that the English respect but two things chiefly in Tobacco, to wit, the colour, and the biting in the nose, they have added poison to the painting, and anointed the leaves of their Tobacco with common sublimate; by which, though it do not work at the instant; yet may the one half of all the Gentlemen of England, and many thousands of others be easily poisoned in one year.  
For it is known to many that there hath been Tobacco brought out of Spain, with dissolved sublimate, which every man knows to be poison, and no way so dangerously ministered without suspicion, as by fume.  
The natural colour of Tobacco is a deep yellow, or a light tawny▪ and when the Indians themselves sold it us for Knives, Hatchets, Beads, Bells, and like merchandise, it had no other complexion, as all the Tobacco at this day hath, which is brought from the coast of Guiana, from Saint Vincents, from Saint Lucia, from Dominica, and other places, where we buy it but of the natural people; and all these sorts are clean, and so is that of St. Domingo, where the Spaniards have not yet learned the Art of Sophistication.  
There is also a sort of Caraccas' Tobacco, which the Indians make up, and sell to the Spaniards, which is wholesome enough; but there comes little of it into England  
Now besides these harmful mixtures, if our English which delight in Indian Tobacco, had seen how the Spanish slaves make it up, how they dress their sores, and pocky ulcers, with the same unwashed hands with which they slubber and anoint the Tobacco, and call it sauce Per los perros Luteranos, for Lutheran dogs; they would not so often draw it into their heads and through their noses as they do: yea many a filthy savour should they find therein, did not the smell of the honey master it; which smell every man may plainly perceive that takes of the black role Tobacco, brought from Orenoque, Trinidado, and elsewhere.  
To the end therefore, as I have already said, that the treasures exchanged for Tobacco, may be kept within the Land; that those that delight therein may have it at a better rate, and to avoid the danger of the Spanish mixtures, I have hereunder set down certain observations, by the help of which all that are disposed to plant Tobacco in England, may assuredly bring the same to strength and perfection: yea to strength exceeding all that is brought from the Indies.  
Now the first thing that you are to take care for, must be the soil: of which the ground naturally fertile, is the best, and that which hath not borne any other but grass: for if you sow your seed in ground enriched with dung, except you stay two year at least, till the dung and the vapour thereof be consumed, your Tobacco will retain the savour of it.  
If you sow it where Cabbage and Turnips have been lately sown; those roots will also infect your Tobacco with their smell. Nay you must take care that your ground be not overfar: for the fattest grounds bring forth so thick and so rugged a leaf, and so filled with moisture, as it will never be brought to any colour, never to any strength, nor never burn well in the pipe: A good soil, neither too rich nor too poor, is the best, and the best help to better the barren, is dung of sheep.  
The seeds which you are to sow, are of two kinds, the male and female; the male is the lesser leaf, and bears a yellow flower; of which kind is that of Brasill, which the people of the land call Petun.  
The female brings a very large leaf, and far larger and longer in England, and in France, then in the Indies; by reason of their sandy grounds, and want of rain there; and it bears a pale incarnate flower. If this latter kind would ripen in England, in certainty it would yield far more profit to the planters, it requireth less labour in the gathering, withering, and making up: and being ripe, it will come to a perfect tawny colour, without any other Art then the stoving: but the lesser leaf is generally the stronger, and subject to less hazard than the greater.  
In all the months between September and April you may cast your seed into the ground: for as that seed which falleth of itself in the end of September, and lieth as it falleth uncovered, doth grow and thrive as well as that which is sown in january, February, or March: so doth the last sowing in April prosper as well, and grow as soon ripe as any of the rest. When it is sown it must be covered but thinly with earth: for if you rake too much earth over it, it will come up too late to ripen for that year.  
If the Spring be dry, you must water it often to bring it out of the ground: your water must be river or pond water; for that of wells is too cold, except you set it all the day in the Sun.  
After your seeds are grown up to a stalk of three inches high, you must take them up and replant them, leaving two foot between each plant of the lesser kind, and three foo●● between each plant of the greater. If you leave your plants so long on the ground ere you set them abroad, that the stalk have six inches in length, then must you either bury in the ground four of the six inches, or else they will hang the head, and be long ere they recover: and having set them in so deep you bury that part of the stalk which would bring out your fairest and strongest leaves: you must therefore replant as soon as you have a stalk able to be set abroad.  
You must also take care to water your plants once a day: in the morning, if the Spring be cold; in the evening if it be warm; otherwise they will wither, or stand long ere they recover.  
After they are grown a foot high, or somewhat more, they will offer to knob, and cast out little buttons for seed; which they will do the sooner if you sow them in the increase of the Moon, which you must avoid. These knobs you must every day nip off, so must you do all the by-branches that it casteth out, and all the stalks but one that shoots out of the same root: you must leave but one stalk, and upon it not above 8 or 10 leaves. This pruning must be continued from the time that your Tobacco begins to yield shuts and buttons for seed, even to the time that you gather it: which if you shall neglect, coveting to have many stalks, because many leaves, your Tobacco will be weak and worth nothing.  
Your next and greatest care must be, your patience to attend the ripening: for if you gather your leaves before they change colour on the stalk, they will be good for nothing. Your corn and all other fruits and grains may teach you this, that nothing hath any great virtue where nature is prevented. When your leaves be toward ripening, they will be full of yellow spots, which you shall best discern if you hold a leaf between you and the light.  
And yet you must not so love your own as to take it green: for if when you cut it and dry it, how strong soever it prove in the taking of it, the greatness shows that either it wants ripeness or fermentation; it must look yellow at the least, otherwise it may prove equally harmful with that which is sophisticate. I must also advise you, not to slubber your English with Mel rosarum, and other trumpery, as many of our own Artificers do, thereby to bring it to the Indian colour: it is an impious practice to play with the health of men, and to make profit by their destruction. Your English Tobacco if you give it time to ripen, and time to ferment, will change colour, and cast off all her naughty and unwholesome moisture, and change her green garment for that which is perfect yellow or tawny, without any art or addition.  
When you have gathered the ripe leaves; for all will not be ripe at once, you may lay them in the Sun for two or three hours, otherwise they will be so brickle, as they will break in the stringing: and if the weather be cloudy, than you may leave them in your baskets two or three days, and then string them upon thread, and so hang them in a close room, where no wind entereth, or lay them on a clean boarded floor, till they whither and become yellowish, which they will do in 10, 12, or 14 days, but you may not over-dry them; for than they will not sweat and change colour.  
When they are thus withered, but not dried to crumble, you must stove them in heaps, in a heat somewhat stronger than a hothouse, and like unto the heat of an Oven after the bread drawn: for if your heat be too great, it will burn, if too little, it will require a long time in their sweeting, or fermentation, ere they be brought to perfection. But if you suffer your leaves to be perfect ripe ere you gather them, than they will ferment in a short time, and obtain a perfect Indian colour, I mean the natural Indian colour, though not the artificial and black. He that wears cloth to the end it was invented for, to wit, to defend him from cold, and wet, cares more for the goodness than the colour: howsoever it is better to accept of our own with some little fault, then to use the India with a great deal of filthiness.  
In the mean time, and until we have store of our own, I advise my Countrymen to take the leaf of Saint Domingo, or the leaves of Dominica, and of the islands adjoining, or those Indian leaves that are of a deep yellow, or slight tawny, which colours are natural, and forbear the black which is foul, the died Tobacco, which is red, and the leaf brought in by the Portugals, and the like slubbered stuff.  
The Tobacco which comes from the Barmuda is cast away either by neglecting to prune it, or else because they nourish overmany leaves on one stalk, which they do either out of Ignorance, or for that they cover to have the greater quantity, or otherwise; because, as I hear, they imitate the Spaniards in ivicing it: that place would otherwise give us that which is excellent, and so would Virginia.  
For the rest, after you have taken your Tobacco out of your stove, you must layit abroad some three or four days: for if you make it up too moist, it will grow mouldy.  
For conclusion, because there hath been much dispute about this herb, whether it be wholesome or harmful: I will let my Countrymen know, what by long experience, and conference with others, I find.  
It is taken in all America, even from Canada to the straits of Magellan, in all Africa upon the coast, from Barbary to the Cape of good hope, and so till you come to the mouth of the red sea; it is also used in most of all the kingdoms of the East Indies.  
The Spaniards and Indians of the West give us three principal reasons why they use it: the first is because it opens the body, and le's out the heat by the pores which is praeter naturam within them: the second is, the consumption and avoiding of superfluous moisture wherewith they are filled by eating of fruits abundantly, by drinking of water, and in all the Inland Countries for want of salt: the third is, because it stays both hunger and thirst, and doth refresh them after great travail and toil: these be the general virtues and known to all: but the Spanish Physicians, their Priests, and others that are learned, find somewhat else, and of more importance in this herb: for they use a confection of Tobacco in all Callentures or burning fevers, and they take it in smoke to defend them in long navigations from the scurvy, and they cure with it all sores and ulcers: yea it is certain, that the juice of Tobacco, mixed with a little sea-water, doth resist the venom of poisoned arrows, wherewith the Spaniards (how slight soever the hurt be) are without such a help wounded to death. The Brasilians say that it is cordial, and they also take it to stay hunger and thirst when they travel and want sustenance. The people of the South-parts of Virginia esteem it exceedingly, and so do the rest: they say that God in the creation did first make a woman, than a man, thirdly great maize, or Indian wheat, and fourthly, Tobacco: they use it for the curing of wounds, and in smoke as we do; and they are superstitiously led to believe that when they are in danger of drowning, in foul wether, that if they cast Tobacco into the water, that the billow will fall, 
L. 1. Simplicium medicament. ex novo orb dilatorum.  and grow less. Monardus the Spaniard commends it in all pains of the head, growing by defluctions or windy vapours, in the toothache occasioned by cold rheum, in all diseases of the breast, old coughs, asthmatical passions, and the like, in all pains of the joints, and swellings, if the leaves roasted under embers be often applied; which the Indian women administer to their children for the coldness of their stomach, and windiness. The same Author affirmeth, that in the suffocation of the matrix, it is a present remedy, if the leaves made warm be applied to the navel or bottom of the belly; in all green wounds and ulcers, and in the gangrene he prizeth it above all other vegetables: yea he affirmeth that an experience was made in the presence of King Philip the second of Spain, upon a dog poisoned. These be Monardus his words, as I find them in Clusius, Rex ipse Catholicus, eius vires experiri volens, Cani vulnus infligi jussit in gutture, & toxico quo ven●●atores utuntur, illini; & paulo post foliorum Tobacci succum satis copiose instillari, & ipsa folia trita super vulnus ligari: liberatus est canis non sine omnium admiratione. The Catholic King willing to make trial of the virtue of it, caused a dog to have a wound made in his throat, and to be anointed with poison which the hunter's use; and a while after he made the juice of Tobacco to be plentifully powered into it, and the bruised leaves to be bound upon the wound, and the dog was healed, to the no small admiration of all that were present. The same Author commends this herb for the cure of the Polypus, and doth avow that he himself hath cured it with the juice of Tobacco.  
Clusius in his experience affirmeth, 
Fol. 310.  that in all old ulcers putrid, and of a malign quality, in the gangrene, in the scabs, clouds in the eyes, etc. he hath used the unguent of Tobacco with happy success.  
Mr Gerald in his history of plants, or great herbal, tells us, that the dropsy hath been cured with the juice of Tobacco; and in the same book, 
Fol. 288.  he teacheth the composition of an unguent made with the lesser or male Tobacco: which book, because the poorer sort are not able to buy, & that the said Gerald doth so highly commend the use of this herb, I thought good to take it out word for word, for the common good of all poor people needing such a remedy, and these be his words. I do make hereof an excellent balsam to cure deep wounds and punctures, etc. which balsam doth bring up the flesh from the bottom very speedily, & also heal simple cuts in the flesh, according to the first intention, that is, to glue or solder the lips of the wound together, not procuring matter or corruption unto it, as is commonly seen in the healing of wounds. Take (saith he) oil of roses, oil of Saint john's wort, of either one pint, the leaves of Tobacco, stamped small in a stone mortar, two pound, boil them together to the consumption of the juice, strain it, and put it to the fire again, adding thereunto of Venice Turpentine two ounces, of Olibanum and Mastic, of either half an ounce in most fine and subtle powder, which may at all times make it into an unguent or salve, by putting thereunto wax and rosin, to give unto it a stiff body. He further saith, that the juice or distilled water of the lesser leaf is very good against catharres, the dizziness of the head, and rheums that fall down to the eyes, against the pain called the Migrame, if either you apply it to the temples, or take one or two green leaves, or the dry leaf moistened in wine, and warmed on embers, and apply it. Many notable medicines are made hereof against the old and inveterate cough, a-against asthmatical and pectoral griefs, which if I should set down at large, would require a peculiar volume. So far Gerald.  
For the taking of it in smoke, if the Tobacco be clean, and not poisoned with juices, and other Art, I know that it is an excellent remedy for the headache, for the vertigo & dizines of the head, for moist & watery stomachs, it prevaileth against the rumes & defluctions, & all the pains of the joints thereby occasioned, and against all affections of the head, watering of the eyes, and toothache, that it keeps off the gout and sciatica, and taketh away the redness of the face, that at sea it preserveth those that take it both from the Calenture or burning Fever, and from the Scurvy, that it openeth obstructions, and is exceeding profitable in the falling sickness. The syrup is a good vomit, and so is a draft of white or rhenish wine, wherein so much of the leaf as weigheth six pence hath been steeped all night: the oil that droppeth out of a foul pipe, killeth Tetters, and all of that kind.  
The Hearbalists and other Physicians make divers kinds or species of this Tobacco; they commend that which beareth the great leaf, and pale incarnate flower, and call it the true Tobacco, a second sort they call Petum, and a third Nicosian.  
Others (and think they speak learnedly) call our English of the lesser leaf, yellow Henbane, or Hoscyamus Luteus, and the greater Hoscyamus Perwianus; yea they make a difference between the Tobacco of Paria and Trinidado, and that of Peru; although I am well assured, that there was never any one pound of Peru Tobacco seen in England or in Europe. But if the herb which we call Sage, differ in kind from the same herb, because the French call it Serge, and the Latins Saluia, and so all other herbs, which divers nations call diversly: then doth the Petum, the Nicosian, and the Tobacco differ; otherwise there is nothing between them: But the greatness & littleness which we distinguish by male and female, as in many other herbs we do the like: for the Spaniards which first found this plant in the Isle Tobaque, did therefore call it after the name of that Island: and it is true, that because there is no better soil in the world, and that it hath rain & heat sufficient, the Tobacco there growing is very large. Of this very kind (found every where in America) it was that john Nicot, 
Clusius & Seres Thevet. Cos. gen.  born in Nismes in Languedoc, & Ambassador in Portugal for Henry the 2d of France, sent of the seed to Queen Katherine of Medicis, after called, Queen Mother of France, whereupon it was by some called, Queen Mothers herb, by others it was and is still called Nycosian, and yet Thevet vaunts that he sent it into France 10 years before Nicots Embassage. Now as the Brasilians call this Tobacco, Petum; so in the West Indies it is called Vicielt, saith Monardus: and Ouiedus. lib. 11 c. 5. saith, that in Hispaniola it is called Perebecenut, 
Simp. Medicam.  the Guianians call it Tamoi, other Nations Tekel, & the Virginians Opoak, & it is every where, and in England itself, greater, according to the soil: yea it diffe●s in taste, thickness, largeness, and goodness almost in every Garden wherein it is planted.  
True it is, notwithstanding that there are found manifest differences in the male and female, or in the greater or the less, both in flower & largeness, though both of one kind, the same being found in many Herbs, Plants, and Trees beside.  
Now for those that make Tobacco a kind of Hoscryamus, because it stupifieth as Hoscryamus, or Henbane doth, they may as well say that Opium is also a kind of Tobacco, or Tobacco a kind of Opium, or that Stramonium is of that species which benumbeth more than either Tobacco or Opium. For the rest, this is true, that as it is usually taken in England, it hath more of the ill then of the good. For those that take Tobacco with wine, do absolutely alter the property of it, & make it the Artificer of many ill accidents and diseases, I mean all those that drink wine between meals, and presently after the taking of it. For where God hath given this herb for a remedy to those poor people that want both wine, spice, and salt, that do often swim rivers, and dive under water, that go naked, and are beaten with showers, that feed abundantly upon fruits, that suffer hunger and thirst, that live in a region violently hot: we in this part of the world use Wine of all sorts, and all sorts of Spices, we eat salt with our meat, and powder our flesh and fish with it, and thereby dry up, and suck out the corrupt and harmful moisture that it hath: we that, besides Wine, have strong Beer, & strong Ale, that cover our bodies with garments, and are priest with cold for three parts of the year, do not need any such drying fume at all.  
It is true that those that have decaying bodies, those that are of years, and oppressed with moisture and phlegm, those that are subject to rheums and the cough, that have cold stomachs, and are inclined to the gout, or have it, or that are subject to any of the imperfections before named, for those it is a singular remedy. But it destroys all our youth that take it without cause, and every hour of the day, it makes them tender and not able to endure the air, it makes them dull and sleepy, brings them to the rheum and toothache, mars their teeth, except they cleanse them often, begets in them a drought, and consequently a desire to drink: yea and an entrance to drunkenness itself: for many of them finding some little sickness in their stomachs when they take strong Tobacco, do presently drink of the strongest Wines: the Tobacco opens the body, and makes way, by which the wine invadeth the liver, and drieth it up: yea taken in that manner with strong drinks it consumes the radical moisture, and hasteneth on old age: the Indians do therefore forbid it the children, till they have taken wives and have had children, as we in England were wont to forbid maids and young men the use of Wine: for though Tobacco stir the appetite, yet is it no friend to generation, used with wine as before remembered. He that desireth further knowledge of this Herb, let him read Oliver de Serres, L. of Pradel in his Agriculture, and Car. Stephanus upon the same subject, lib. 2. c. 76.  
FINIS.