Certainly a compendium!—but if I were a new smoker faced with reading and comprehending the longer tomes, (last one is 169 pages!) I don't know if I'd ever start!
In the last one, he posits that flake tobacco was born out of sailors on long voyages trying to keep tobacco from drying out. (!!) This on wooden ships at sea, where getting too dry would be a miracle unless in irons at the equator. Minimizing storage space, another reason for pressing into flakes he cites, would seem to be the impetus for flake origination.
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