History of tobacco brought to Spain for its flowers, but "Now we use it to a greater extent for the sake of its virtues than for its beauty". John Hawkins was the first to bring tobacco seeds to England. William Harrison's "English Chronology" mentions tobacco smoking in the country as of 1573, before Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first "Virginia" tobacco to Europe from the Roanoke Colony, referring to it as "tobah" as early as 1578. In 1595 Anthony Chute published "Tabaco", which repeated earlier arguments about the benefits of the plant and emphasised the health-giving properties of pipe-smoking. The importation of tobacco
Curing of tobacco days and ten weeks, depending on the process and the tobacco. Fire curing produces a tobacco low in sugar and high in nicotine. Pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, and snuff are fire cured. "Flue-cured" tobacco was originally strung onto tobacco sticks, which were hung from tier-poles in curing barns (Aus: kilns), also traditionally called oasts. These barns have flues which run from externally fed fire boxes, heat-curing the tobacco without exposing it to smoke, slowly raising the temperature over the course of the curing. In the 1960s conversion to gas fueled systems such as the Gastobac Burner System® was common. The