ME is not just Europe, but at least the entirety of the Old World as we know it. Possibly the Americas were part of ME as well, joined to the East of the continent.
If the Eastern Lands were in fact a seperate landmass to Middle-Earth, then potato and tobacco would quite possibly have been brought to ME by Numenorean mariners in the early Third Age, adopted and perfected by Hobbits before being lost in the dark ages of after years.
If this sounds too unlikely, then perhaps these plants were in fact native to Middle-Earth in the first place. Obviously they would have had to have been either lost through some evil or abandoned. Hmmm.... anyway, I personally will think of this minor issue only vaguely in the latter terms, as it really isn't that important [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].
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