THE TOBACCO PLANT. NATIVE OF FOUND BY TAKEN TO GROWS IN THE America. Columbus, 1492. Portugal, Torrid and 1496. temperate zones. France, 1560. (About 50 species.) England, 1586. DESCRIPTION. FAMILY _Height_, 3 to 6 feet. _The same as the_ Jerusalem Cherry, _Leaves,_ lance-ovate, and running Petunia, down the stem. Potato, _Stem,_ hairy and sticky. Tomato, _Flowers,_ funnel-shaped and Egg-plant, purplish. Red pepper, etc. HOW MADE READY FOR USE. (1) (2) Cut-off above the roots. Flavored and scented. Dried. Rolled for cigars. Stripped; sorted. Pressed for chewing. Packed, and sold to the Ground for snuff. manufacturers. * * * * * THE POISON IN TOBACCO AND THE HARM IT DOES. _THE POISON._--What is the poison in fermented liquors?--"Alcohol." In distilled liquors?--"Alcohol" True; and the strongest poison in tobacco is _nicotine_, named from the man who first sent it to France, Jean Nicot. Beside this it contains several others, some of which we shall tell you about when we make up our blackboard outline. Tobacco, like alcohol, is a narcotic; that is, it soothes pain and produces sleep. Alcohol acts first upon the nerves; tobacco upon the muscles, which it weakens and causes to tremble. It often causes palpitation of the heart. If the skin is scratched or punctured, and tobacco poison put into the wound, it will do the same harm as if it were taken into the stomach. Tobacco is so dangerous that physicians do not use it much as a medicine. _HARM DONE IN THE STOMACH._--You remember that after alcohol has been swallowed, the little mouths of the stomach take it up and carry it to the liver, which sends it with the blood to different parts of the body. Tobacco, as we have already told you, poisons more slowly. People do not swallow it purposely, yet some of it goes down, accidentally, into the stomach with the saliva, and makes trouble there, causing nausea and vomiting when taken for the first time. By and by the stomach seems to take the poison without being hurt, but it really suffers from dyspepsia or other diseases, and often loses its appetite for wholesome food.