Southern Star pipe-weed and tobacco-growing in England

[Darren Grey]

In ep 227 there was an aside about the "Southern Star" breed of pipeweed, and for some strange reason this got discussed for only a minute before moving onto more "proper" story discussion. Well I can't help thinking about it more, so I did some digging and ended up down a crazy rabbit-hole...

Firstly, I'm reasonably confident after some research that the "star" reference is to the flower of the nicotiana plant. The nicotiana sylvestris (white shooting stars) breed in particular has a striking 5-pointed white flower, and is used as an ornamental plant in English gardens. This variety was nicknamed "Star Flower", has received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Merit, and was front-page feature of Park Seed's 1904 Floral Guide! I'm not sure if 12-year-old Tolkien was a Park Seed subscriber or not... But in general all nicotania plants have star-shaped flowers which are strongly fragrant (something noted in the book - "The Men of Gondor call it sweet galenas, and esteem it only for the fragrance of its flowers"). A coincidence that this star-flowered plant is natively Numenorean? Hmm.

Seeing that this is a plant you can find in English gardens made me wonder how practical tobacco is to grow in the English climate. The hobbits grow large amounts of pipe-weed in a climate that should be roughly equivalent to Oxford. Is that realistic, or should it be lumped in with all the other strange anachronisms and oddities that follow hobbits in Middle-Earth? Tolkien usually was quite well-researched in his realism, but had a soft spot for giving hobbits umbrellas and the like.

Well, it turns out that growing tobacco in England is very much feasible. Indeed, the first successful plantation was in Gloucestershire (Oxford area) in 1619, but it was soon outlawed by Charles II to protect the colonial industry. It also proved rather inefficient to grow in the UK as it was very labour-intensive. But illicit tobacco-growing continued for decades, with major illegal plantations in the Cotswolds, until tobacco became far cheaper to import from slave-run plantations in Virginia. Much more info in this article. The Cotswolds pretty much *is* The Shire, and I wouldn't be surprised if Tolkien was aware of this bit of history. So he likely knew that ecologically speaking it was very feasible for Shire farmers to successfully grow tobacco. And in the prologue he goes out of the way to say that in the north "it is never found wild, and flourishes only in warm sheltered places", so clearly he cared to make it appear ecologically feasible.

It seems there was a bit of an English tobacco revival in the mid-20th century, as teased by the article 'The History and Present Position of Tobacco-Growing in England', a transcription of a lecture by Robert Duncan to the Royal Society of Arts in 1952. All bar the first page is behind a paywall, alas, but hints at English cultivation of tobacco happening around the early/mid-20th century, with Duncan himself getting a commercial grower's license in 1944. Duncan was primarily a poet and playwright, not a farmer, and read English at Cambridge under FR Leavis (nemesis of CS Lewis) - could Tolkien have known this fellow Oxbridge writer Ronald and been exposed to his English tobacco? Well, probably not, and certainly not in time to influence the Lord of the Rings. Interesting anyway...

 

[Halstein]

We had tobacco-plantations in Norway up to 1920. In 1730 king Christian VI of Denmark-Norway encouraged farmers to grow tobacco, and banned imports. So tobacco can be grown in colder climes than Oxford.

There seems to have been mixed feelings about smoking in Norway. A 1741 law in Norway banned smoking for youths under the age of 21. The parents of perpetrators would be punished with two consecutive Sundays in the pillory.

 

[Flammifer]

Tobacco has long been grown, and is still grown, in Connecticut. The climate there is harsher than Oxford in the winter, though probably hotter in the summer. The famous Connecticut Shade Tobacco is not used for pipeweed, but almost exclusively for the finest tobacco for cigar wrappers. It is called 'Connecticut Shade' because shades of fabric are used to shield it from the harshest summer sun when growing.

So, it is not surprising that tobacco could be grown in the climate of the Shire or Bree. What is more surprising is that tobacco plants should be found in the 'Old World' at the time of TLOTR. The genus Nicotiana, of which tobacco plants are members, is indigenous to the Americas, and was unknown in Europe in our times until the Columbian exchange. It may have been native to, or imported to Numenor, and thence to Middle-earth, to be present at the time of TLOTR, but presumably died out in Eurasia sometime subsequently?

(Same with the potatoes that Sam fantasizes cooking for Gollum?)

 

[Darren Grey]

Sam also fantasises about fried fish and chips, which wasn't a "thing" until the 1860s. But as I said, Tolkien happily ignores certain things for his hobbitses, who are overall rather Victorian as a society.

Very interesting to know about tobacco growing in such northern climes. I've always associated it with more tropical locations.

 

[Odola]

Sam also fantasises about fried fish and chips, which wasn't a "thing" until the 1860s. But as I said, Tolkien happily ignores certain things for his hobbitses, who are overall rather Victorian as a society.

Very interesting to know about tobacco growing in such northern climes. I've always associated it with more tropical locations.

I have been playing in tobacco fields as child in Poland on vacation in the country side - growed here without any problem. And the climate on the Isles is far milder than here.

 

[KeelyFritz]

The connection you found with the nicotiana sylvestris and its star-shaped flowers is intriguing. And the historical context of tobacco-growing in England, especially in places like Gloucestershire, adds a layer of realism to the Shire's pipeweed cultivation.
As for your aside about stress, it's true that minor issues can sometimes weigh us down. But it's good to hear that you found something that works for you. I used to stress a lot until I got myself a cannabis card. It's been a game-changer for me, in my opinion.