In 1922’s Tobaccoland, Carl Avery Werner expands on his 1914 book A Textbook on Tobacco. His goal when writing it was to “make of it a book that might appeal to the lovers of tobacco as well as the traffickers in tobacco – to the mere devotee as well as to the man in the trade.”1
Werner includes a different etymology for the word ‘cigar’ than other authors had used before him: that it came from the word ‘grasshopper’. The Spanish word cigarrel means ‘orchard’, and tobacco was grown in the orchards of the wealthy in Spain. So the story goes:
“A Spaniard of high class entertaining a friend would, upon offering him a smoke, say, with pardonable price, ‘Es de mi cigarrel,’ which means ‘It is from my orchard.’ Foreigners, so the legend runs, hearing their hosts speaking about the smokes they gave as es de mi cigarrel, came to believe that the word cigarrel was Spanish for rolls of tobacco, and in time they began to use this word, shortening it to ‘cigarro,’ and eventually to cigar, as meaning a roll of tobacco for smoking. Extending the romance it is explained that originally cigarrel meant cicado or grasshopper, and because the grasshoppers gathered and chirped the loudest in the orchard, the latter took the name of the insect.”2
Werner covers the history of tobacco deeply and thoroughly as it spread around the world.
Early cigars were made in the United States in 1801 using Connecticut tobacco, with the first American factory established in 1810. The number of cigars made in the United States skyrocketed in the second half of the 1800s. In 1860, almost 200 million cigars were made in the US. By 1892, the number was over 4.5 billion. Cigar tobacco was also grown in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Wisconsin, Florida, and Louisiana throughout the 1800s and early 1900s.
Werner also wrote about cigar store figures – commonly Indians. The earliest recorded cigar store Indian figure was in 1617. These figures let people know where tobacco shops could be found; they were advertisements. Other figures have been used as wooden figures throughout history – Punch, baseball players, men of fashion, and black servants were used to advertise tobacco. (There are racial problems with many types of wooden figures that were used for this purpose, though that doesn’t change the fact that they were used.)
In this book, the books and poetry surrounding tobacco are discussed, with a chapter on each.
In another interesting section, Werner recounts a number of attempts to prohibit smoking in the early Americas:
- In 1629, settlers in Massachusetts couldn’t plant tobacco except for small quantities for medicinal purposes
- In 1638, a law was passed that prohibited people from smoking in barns, fields, forests, inns, or public houses except in private rooms
- In 1646, smoking was only legal when it was part of a trip 5 miles or more from town
- There were many fines enacted in the Plymouth colony for people who smoked
- In 1641, the people of Connecticut were prohibited from smoking tobacco that was grown outside of Connecticut
- And more!
There is an entire chapter dedicated to the chemistry of tobacco, and another dedicated to its effects on the human body. Another chapter includes statistics of cigar, cigarette, and tobacco/snuff usage in the United States. They’re fascinating numbers and worth a read.
Werner says this is how to judge the quality of a cigar:
“As every cigar dealer knows, it is impossible to get the slightest idea of the quality of a cigar by holding it, unlighted, horizontally under the nose and sniffing at it – a custom very general among smokers.
Experts appraise cigars on five counts: first, burn; second, aroma; third, taste or flavor; fourth, color, and fifth, workmanship.”3
Werner goes into depth about the types and grades of tobacco in another chapter, and then discusses how tobacco is cultivated in the United States.
I believe anyone who is interested in the topic of tobacco will find something interesting in this book. It’s well-written, well-organized, and packed full of information. There’s even a section on merchandising, and how to run a successful cigar store business – or at least how you would have been successful in 1922. One interesting tidbit of advice from him: “If a customer calls for something you have not got, don’t make the mistake of telling him it is not good or that you ‘never heard of it.’ While he may not outwardly resent this, inwardly he feels that you have disparaged his judgment; and you have done yourself no good.”4
Tobaccoland is in the public domain and can be read for free at the Hathi Trust.