Foreword - No one really knows why men smoke. Yet long before the dis­covery of tobacco, smoking had become the abiding joy of many peoples. Since tobacco's discovery, smoking has truly become one of mankind's most pleasurable pastimes.

The modern smoker has three means of enjoying this universal practice: through cigarettes, cigars, and the pipe. And of these three, the pipe gives the smoker lasting pleasure and the greatest solace.

01. What Is A Pipe? - A pipe is nothing more than a bowl to hold burning tobacco, and a tube through which the smoke may be drawn into the mouth. But this seemingly simple device is the result of a sur­prising amount of skill, industry, and science. In a thousand years of smoking, the Indians of North and South America evolved only crude, clumsy pipes fashioned of coarse pottery or stone. The modern pipe, on the other hand, is the creation of European craftsmen, who brought their art to perfection over a period of more than four centuries.

02. King + Queen of Pipes - The briar justly may be called the king of pipes. It has displaced almost every other kind of pipe from the smoker's shelf. And rightly so, for briarwood is ideal pipe material—hard, tough and fire-resistant. Moreover, the briar pipe gives a cool, sweet, mellow smoke for many years.

03. Pipe Varieties - For serious pipe-smoking, the briar should always be your first choice. However, if on occasion you desire a novel experience, try reaching for one of the more unusual pipes, such as a clay pipe, a calabash, a corncob, a churchwarden, or even a water pipe. These are some of the most readily available types, although the variety of possible pipes and pipe materials must be counted as almost endless.

04. Selecting A Pipe - Selecting your pipe is a very personal affair. The pipe must, first of all, fit your personality and character. It should also en­hance your appearance, and provide you with the comfort, con­fidence, and satisfaction to which every pipe smoker is entitled.

When selecting a pipe, regard it as the old friend it will become, as something you will be living with for many years.

05. Selecting Tobacco - In the days when America was merely a group of colonies, and tobacco smoking was still in its infancy, a devotee of the pipe would simply take a tobacco leaf, crumble it in his hand, and place the shreds in the pipe bowl. He knew that if the leaf came from the base of the plant, the smoke would be strong and heavy; if the leaf came from the center portion of the stalk, the smoke would be fairly mild; and if the leaf had grown near the top of the plant, the smoke would be very light and rather tasteless.

06. Art of Smoking - Smoking a pipe is such a common custom today that we tend to forget it is both an art and a science developed over four centuries.

It is an art in that a pipe is smoked for pleasure and pleasure only. It is a science in that the pipe bowl is a small furnace which, like any other furnace, must be properly fueled, fired, and cleaned in order to operate at its best. Unless these techniques are mas­tered, the smoker will find little joy in the use of his pipe.

07. Briar Pipes - It is no easy task to transform a rough piece of natural briar into a fine pipe—a pipe that that will smoke well and remain an object of lasting beauty. Skilled craftsmen plus the best modern machin­ery are required to create today's high-quality pipe.

Before the development of the power-turning lathe, all pipes were made by hand. Pipe making was a carver's art, passed on for generations from father to son.

08. Pipe Accessories - The serious pipe smoker will soon discover that a number of accessories are essential for the maintenance of his pipe and to­bacco. Of course, it is possible to smoke a pipe without any addi­tional equipment; but it seems foolish to spend ten dollars for a fine pipe, take the time and effort to break in the pipe properly, and then ruin the pipe by improper maintenance and poor smok­ing practices

09. Hobby - Collecting pipes is an old and established pastime. Men were collecting pipes when postage stamps had not as yet been inven­ted. Indeed, the requirements of pipe collecting are among the simplest of any hobby: any smoker can be said to have a pipe col­lection if he has more than one pipe

10. Pipes Q & A - No one book can include within its covers all the facts about pipes and tobacco. An entire library would be required to deal with all the facets of pipe smoking. Although the contents of this book encompass a great deal of ground, they are by no means the last word on the subject. Both the new smoker and the veteran will often face baffling smoking problems and search in vain for their solution.

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