We had one growing in the back garden a few house moves ago.
Once it got to five feet and started peeking over the fence, Mrs T got paranoid and it was destroyed.
It was not tobacco :-)
My first house was an ex-tobacco-farm. It had all the drying equipment, pulleys, rails etc.. After the war many people in central France, grew tobacco as a quick money-making venture. There are still several farms grow it, but it nearly all goes to pharmaceutical companies now.