8.RP.1.2

Maddy Dunagan April 29, 2012  Eighth Grade Exit Project Tobacco Tobacco is a tall, herbaceous plant that is grown as an all year long crop and is used for it leaves which are harvested, cured, and rolled into cigars, shredded for use in cigarettes and pipes, and processed for chewing or snuff. Tobacco is an important crop in almost all tropical countries as well as in many temperate ones, and the tobacco industry is an influential economic force.

**//History//**

Tobacco is native to the Americas. The practice of inhaling the smoke of the dried plant material has been traced back to the [|__Maya__]  culture more than 2,000 years ago. The custom of smoking in tobacco apparently moved northward from Central America through the Aztec empire and eventually to the North American Indian tribes. The [|__Arawak__]  Indians of the Caribbean smoked tobacco; Christopher [|__Columbus__] , during his 1492 voyage, found them smoking loosely rolled cigars. The Spanish took tobacco seeds to Europe, where Jean Nicot gave the plant its generic name, //Nicotiana.// Sir Walter [|__Raleigh__]  began the popularization of [|__pipe__]  smoking in Great Britain in 1586. The cultivation and consumption of tobacco spread with each voyage of discovery from Europe.

Two kinds of tobacco were traded from Europe to America one was Spanish tobacco which came from South and Central America. The second was Virginia tobacco which came from what is now the state of Virginia.

Europeans started smoking by pipes, later on through cigars. Cigarettes spread in popularity only after the [|__Crimean War__]  (1854–56); their spread was aided by the development in the United States of the first cigarette-making machine in 1881.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Today, China is the world's leading tobacco grower, followed by Brazil, India, and the United States. Italy, Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, and Zimbabwe are also major producers.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**//Cultivation//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tobacco comes from a small seed which cannot be sown directly in fields, so they are treated in carefully selected and tended seedbeds where protection is given against heavy rain and excess sun. Tobacco seeds need at least 120 frost free days and nights to survive. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the United States and Canada tobacco is often stalk-cut by machine, but in many parts of the world, it is still harvested leaf by leaf. Only a fully ripe leaf is used. After harvesting, leaves are tied together in pairs on curing sticks or strings.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**//Curing//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**//Flue-Curing- Used mainly in the manufacture in cigarettes, flue-cured tobacco is lemon, orange, or mahogany in color. Flue-curing requires a closed in building equipped with ventilation and a source of heat. When heat and humidity are controlled, leaf color changes, moisture is quickly removed, and the leaves and stems dry.//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**//Air-Curing-//** This style of curing includes the original air-cured tobaccos of South and Central America; the cigar tobaccos subdivided into wrappers, binders, and fillers, depending on their use; and the burley tobaccos, an important component of American cigarettes. Air curing requires an open framework in which sticks of leaves (or whole plants) are hung, protected from wind and sun. Leaf color changes from green to yellow, as leaves and stems dry slowly.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**//Fire-Curing-//** This style of curing generally dark brown, is used mostly for pipe-tobacco mixtures, snuff, and chewing tobacco. Fire curing includes having an enclosed barn. Using small fires on the barn, the leaves cure in the smoke laden atmosphere. Flue curing takes six to eight days, fire curing, using far lower temperatures, may take up to four weeks.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**//Sun-Curing-//** This style of curing is the drying of uncovered sticks or strings of leaf in the Sun. Of all sun-cured tobaccos, the best known are the so-called Oriental tobaccos of Turkey and the Balkans. These are used in cigarettes and have characteristic aromas.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**//Grading and Aging//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In 12 to 18 months have the curing the moisture content is standardized. You store the tobacco into small bales and allowed to ferment. After it has been stored they add moisture to the tobacco to get to the right qualities to make them into cigars, cigarettes, chew, and to use into pipes.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**//Smoking Hazards//**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When it comes to smoking tobacco its bad because you’re putting harmful chemicals into the air and into your lungs. Tobacco affects nonsmokers as well because of “passive" or "involuntary" smoking. There are three major things about passive and involuntary smoking. The first was that involuntary smoking is a cause of disease, including lung cancer, in healthy nonsmokers. The second is that children of parents who smoke have more respiratory infections than children of nonsmokers. (Things like infections including pneumonia and bronchitis.) The third is that the separation of smokers and nonsmokers may reduce, but does not eliminate, the exposure of nonsmokers to tobacco smoke.

Works Cited:

Collins, W. K. "Tobacco." //The New Book of Knowledge.// Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 2 May. 2012.

"Tobacco." //Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.// Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2012.

Moore, E. L. "Tobacco." //Encyclopedia Americana.// Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 2 May. 2012.

Koop, C. Everett. "Smoking." //The New Book of Knowledge.// Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 2 May. 2012.

Partridge, Eric. "Pipe, Tobacco." //Encyclopedia Americana.// Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 2 May. 2012.