Since this leaf is such an important crop, and since it was researched carefully by Meriadoc Brandybuck (later Master of Buckland), we have gained permission to quote directly from his remarks in the introduction to his Herblore of the Shire.

"'This is the one art that we can certainly claim to be our own invention. When Hobbits first began to smoke is not known, all the legends and family histories take it for granted; for ages folk in the Shire smoked various herbs, some fouler, some sweeter. But all accounts agree that Tobold Hornblower of Longbottom in the Southfarthing first grew the true pipe-weed in his gardens in the days of Isengrim the Second, about the year 1070 of Shire-reckoning. The best home-grown still comes from that district, especially the varieties now known as Longbottom Leaf, Old Toby, and Southern Star.

"'How Old Toby came by the plant is not recorded, for to his dying day he would not tell. He knew much about herbs, but he was no traveller. It is said that in his youth he went often to Bree, though he certainly never went further from the Shire than that. It is thus quite possible that he learned of this plant in Bree, where now, at any rate, it grows well on the south slopes of the hill. The Bree-hobbits claim to have been the first actual smokers of the pipe-weed. They claim, of course, to have done everything before the people of the Shire, whom they refer to as "colonists"; but in this case their claim is, I think, likely to be true. And certainly it was from Bree that the art of smoking the genuine weed spread in the recent centuries among Dwarves and such other folk, Rangers, Wizards, or wanderers, as still passed to and fro through that ancient road-meeting. The home and centre of the art is thus to be found in the old inn of Bree, The Prancing Pony, that has been kept by the family of Butterbur from time beyond record.

"'All the same, observations that I have made on my own many journeys south have convinced me that the weed itself is not native to our part of the world but came northward from the lower Anduin, whither it was, I suspect, originally brought over Sea by the Men of Westemesse. It grows abundantly in Gondor, and there is richer and larger than in the North, where it is never found wild and flourishes only in warm sheltered places like Longbottom. The Men of Gondor call it sweet galenas, and esteem it only for the fragrance of its flowers. From that land it must have been carried up the Greenway during the long centuries between the coming of Elendil and our own days. But even the Dúnedain of Gondor allow us this credit: Hobbits first put it into pipes. Not even the Wizards first thought of that before we did. Though one wizard that I knew took up the art long ago, and became as skillful in it as in all other things that he put his mind to.'"

Tea time at Bag End "Then they went back, and found Thorin with his feet on the fender smoking a pipe. He was blowing the most enormous smoke-rings, and wherever he told one to go, it went . . . but wherever it went it was not quick enough to escape Gandalf. Pop! He sent a smaller smoke-ring from his short clay-pipe straight through each one of Thorin’s. Then Gandalf’s smoke-ring would go green and come back to hover over the wizard’s head. He had quite a cloud of them about him already, and in the dim light it made him look strange and sorcerous."

-The Hobbit

"Gimli took some and rubbed it in his palms and sniffed it. ‘It feels good, and it smells good,’ he said. ‘It is good!’ said Merry. ‘My dear Gimli, it is Longbottom Leaf! There were the Hornblower brandmarks on the barrels, as plain as plain. How it came here, I can’t imagine. For Saruman’s private use, I fancy."

-Two Towers