Old Toby

A nickname given, at least in later life, to the Hobbit Tobold Hornblower of Longbottom in the Southfarthing. In his younger days, it seems, Tobold had travelled as far from the Shire as Bree, where he discovered the pipe-weed plant growing on the slopes of the Bree-hill. At least, this is the most likely account of his finding of pipe-weed, though Old Toby himself would never reveal the details.

However he came by the plant, Tobold brought it back to the Southfarthing, where it grew well in the warm conditions in that part of the Shire. The Hobbits began to cultivate pipe-weed across the Southfarthing, though the leaf from the lands around Old Toby's home at Longbottom was considered superior to all others. Several varieties from this district were known, among which one of the best was named for the plant's discoverer: the pipe-weed known as 'Old Toby' after Tobold Hornblower was still being smoked in the Shire more than three centuries after Tobold's own time.