Tobacco is now very extensively cultivated in France and other European countries, in the Levant, the East and West Indies; and a little is grown at the Cape and in the Australian Settlements.

A good deal of tobacco is raised in Mexico, but only for home consumption, as its export is prohibited.  It forms an article of culture in Brazil and some of the South American republics, and is grown to a small extent along the Western shores of Africa.  It is from North America, however, that we derive the bulk of our supplies of this great article of commerce, which, with cotton, forms the chief agricultural wealth of the United States.

In 1821, the tobacco exported from the Brazils amounted to 29,192,000 Lbs., but its cultivation was greatly injured by the siege of the capital in 1822-23.  Fresh seed was subsequently obtained from Cuba, and in 1835 the exports were 6,051,040 Lbs.

131 cases of Princeza snuff were shipped from Bahia to Lisbon, in 1835; about 60,000 Lbs. per annum of this snuff being now manufactured at Bahia, with the aid of two steam-engines.  The exports of tobacco from Bahia increased from 2,048,000 Lbs. in 1833, to 6,051,040 Lbs. in 1835.  The average shipments are about 21,000 bales and rolls.

The army of smokers in Great Britain and Ireland consume yearly about six millions of pounds worth of tobacco.  The duty alone paid upon snuff and tobacco for the people of Great Britain, averages four-and-a-half millions sterling a year!  The quantity consumed—­smoked, snuffed, or chewed—­during the same period, is about 28 millions of pounds weight, or about four pounds weight per annum for every male adult.  Ireland annually pays not less than L800,000 of duty on tobacco and snuff, and only about L30,000 on coffee.  For every pound of coffee that the Irish people use, they smoke away about four pounds of tobacco.

North America produces annually upwards of 200 million pounds.  The combustion of the mass of vegetable material used in this kingdom would yield about 340 million pounds of carbonic acid gas; so that the yearly produce of carbonic acid gas from tobacco smoking alone cannot be less than 1,000,000,000 lbs.—­a large contribution to the annual demand for this gas made upon the atmosphere for the vegetation of the world.  Henceforth let no one twit the smoker with idleness and unimportance.  Every pipe is an agricultural furnace,—­every smoker a manufacturer of vegetation,—­the consumer of a weed that he may rear more largely his own provisions.

In the year 1842, 605,000,000 of cigars were made in the German Commercial Union.

In 1839, the revenue on tobacco in this country was about L3,600,000.  Of this it has been estimated eleven-twelfths are drawn from the working classes, and one-twelfth from the richer classes.  The following is a calculation of the consumption of tobacco per head of the population, estimated from the number of pounds on which duty was paid:—­