Excerpt from Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Vol. 15: American Economic History Tobacco was first discovered by Christopher Columbus in the island of Cuba, where it grew wild, the natives smok ing it either in reeds or rolled in the form of cigars. The colony of Virginia was the first to introduce the cultivation of the fragrant weed, and John Rolfe, the husband of Pocha bontas, inaugurated its systematic cultivation in the colony in the year 1612. In the year 1616 Captain George Yeardly, Deputy Governor, first directed the attention of the colo nists to planting it for profit, showing that its culture prom ised large returns, and from this time on there was an enormous and rapid increase in the annual amount grown. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.