For some basic information in tobacco breeding, the modes of inheritance and heritabilities for the twelve agronomic and chemical characters were estimated in the study of eight varieties partial diallel set. Additive gene actions were significant for all characters except total nitrogen content and dominance gene effects were also significant for all characters. Yield, number of leaves per plant, leaf length and leaf shape index were inherited as partial dominance, and overdominance was detected for plant height, stem diameter, internode length, total alkaloid, total nitrogen and total sugar content. Dominant gene showed increasing effects in yield, plant height, stem diameter, internode length, leaf width and total sugar content, but showed decreasing effects in the other characters. The broad heritability was very high for all characters. and the narrow heritability was high in days to flower and yield, but low in internode length, total alkaloid, total nitrogen and total sugar content.