C.G. Warnford Lock wrote Tobacco: Growing, Curing, & Manufacturing in 1886 because “no English book devoted exclusively to this subject has been published for nearly thirty years. A glance at the bibliography given at the end of this volume will show that the French, German, Swiss, Italian, Dutch, Sicilian, and even Scandinavian planter has a reliable handbook to guide him in this important branch of agriculture, while British settlers in our numerous tobacco-growing colonies must glean their information as best they may from periodical literature.”1
This book describes the tobacco plant, how it is cultivated, how it is cured, and how it is prepared and sold. It goes deep into each of these topics and covers such topics as which types of fertilizers work best (options include guano, poultry droppings, green manure, sheep dung, cattle manure, and hog manure).
If you’re interested in a deep look into the science of growing tobacco in the late 1800s, this is the book for you. It’s very well-researched and gets ‘into the weeds’ (pun intended).
The book also includes a chapter on ‘Adulterations and Substitutes’, which is well worth the read. It includes this wonderful quote:
“It is said that in Thuringia, over 1000 tons yearly of dried beetroot-leaves are passed off as tobacco. These leaves, and those of chicory and cabbage, are similarly employed in Magdeburg and the Palatinate. Many of the Vevey cigars of S. Germany are entirely composed of cabbage-and-beetroot-leaves which have been steeped in tobacco-water for a long time. Other leaves, such as rhubarb, dock, burdock, and coltsfoot are also used. These are principally for cigars.”2
And this one:
“A New York paper mentions that a great quantity of brown straw paper lately reached Havana, which was to be employed in the manufacture of Havana cigars. Straw paper impregnated with the juice of tobacco stalks is wound up with the leaf in such a way that it is often impossible to detect the adulteration.”2
And I can’t help but include this one:
“It has long been known that cigar paper soaked in a solution of soluble glass gives forth no smell of paper on being burnt.”3
So if you’re interested in either adulterated tobacco or in the deep specifics of how to grow and cure tobacco plants, this book has what you’re looking for.
Tobacco: Growing, Curing, & Manufacturing is in the public domain and can be read for free on Project Gutenberg.