What Kind of Smoke?

[Hanshi]

While I am aware that tobacco is an American native and was smoked by Indians, I don't see how it could be raised as a crop but in certain areas of the New World.  Besides tobacco, what was commonly smoked in peace pipes by plains tribes as well as eastern and southern nations?

[pilgrim]

     They could have smoked any kind of bark etc.  Probably was a major trade item,  back in the day.    When I smoked a pipe, I remember misplacing my tobacco pouch, and later found it at work.  Only to be told later by  a prankster coworker that he emptied the office pencil sharpener into the tobacco pouch.  Heck, I never knew the difference.  Anything that will burn, could have been used.  But we must remember,  the American Indians did not smoke like we do.    I smoked one pound of tobacco per month.   It is doubtful they smoked that much in a year.   

     Sort of like coffee.  If memory serves me,  Chickory  Root, and Beech Tree Nuts  has been used for coffee substitute. 

[beowulf]

not sure how far north it can be grown ,but I do know it`s grown here in pennsylvania !
Shade tobacco, is cultivated in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Early Connecticut colonists acquired from the Native Americans the habit of smoking tobacco in pipes, and began cultivating the plant commercially, even though the Puritans referred to it as the "evil weed". The Connecticut shade industry has weathered some major catastrophes, including a devastating hailstorm in 1929, and an epidemic of brown spot fungus in 2000, but is now in danger of disappearing altogether, given the increase in the value of land.
White burley, in 1865, George Webb of Brown County, Ohio planted red burley seeds he had purchased, and found that a few of the seedlings had a whitish, sickly look. The air-cured leaf was found to be more mild than other types of tobacco.      had no idea it grew that far north !

[De_LaLonde]

I've been very interested in this subject as I am a pipe smoker myself.  I do know from what little I've been able to find that there were various blends of barks, leaves, and other organic odds and ends.  As a side subject, does anyone have any information about early pipes that were used?  I've been looking for something other than my modern pipes or the various clay types offered as "colonial". 

[beowulf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinnikinnick

[moby6400]

This URL is about "pipestone", in Minnesota,,, I believe it is the only place it is available in the USA,,,   

https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/pipestone/rock.htm

[moby6400]

We raised tobacco in southern Wisconsin as a cash crop,,, tobacco field not my favorite place to be as a young lad,, but back in the day,, the choice was not mine to make if I enjoyed eating regularly,,,