CHAPTER IV

AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT, 1607-1624

The first ground within the boundaries of the commonwealth of Virginia as it stands to-day, which was broken by an English agricultural implement, was at Jamestown. That place was chosen as the site of the earliest settlement only because it offered extraordinary advantages for defence against the assault of a European foe, whether advancing by the river or by the mainland. It conformed in but one respect to the order given by the Council for the guidance of the voyagers in selecting a spot for the establishment of the projected community: it was virtually an island, a short and narrow peninsula uniting it to the northern bank of the Powhatan.¹ Such insularity was considered by the Company in England to be necessary to the safety of the settlement. A site less favorable from several important points of view for the successful foundation of a colony in Virginia could not have been chosen by those who had that mission to execute. In summer the extensive marshes close at hand poisoned the

surrounding air with the germs of fever, as the Englishmen soon discovered to their cost.¹ The Council had been careful to enjoin that some spot distinguished for its dryness should be selected, but this characteristic was not to be numbered among the physical features of the neighborhood of Jamestown; nor were there any open fields in the immediate vicinity, a fair indication that the Indians did not look upon its soil as of extraordinary fertility, and therefore peculiarly adapted to the production of large crops of maize and vegetables. The primæval woods, which reached to the shore, afforded a secure lurking-place for the savages when meditating an attack, the only means of obstructing their sudden incursions, as well as of providing land for gardens and wheatfields, being to remove the heavy growth of forest, a task tedious in itself, and dangerous in the exposure and exertion to which it led.² All these impediments to the success of the Colony might have been avoided in the beginning by the choice of a site where the soil was stripped of woods, and needing only the touch of the hoe and spade to give forth in abundance. The constant struggle against famine might thus have been prevented, and the necessity of depending even partially upon England and the Indians for supplies diminished; the approach of hostile savages could also have been observed and met with the degree of resistance called

for. The colonists had been strictly admonished by the Council to select a spot free of wood, and in disregarding this instruction they brought upon themselves many of the most serious misfortunes befalling them.¹

The choice which they were required to make was beset with difficulties at the best. Even when a spot appeared to combine every physical advantage, it was open to objection on account of some instruction given by the Company with a view to disconcerting foreign enemies. This was the case in the instance of Kecoughtan. It had two or three thousand acres of cleared fields, the air was not rendered unwholesome by the presence of numerous and extensive marshes and swamps, and the channel of the river could easily have been successfully disputed. The colonists did not take permanent possession of this place because it was exposed to attack on land; it was also under cultivation by the Indians, who could only have been disseized by means which would have been severely condemned by the Company in England, who recognized the wisdom of maintaining peaceful relations with the aboriginal tribes;² in addition, the orders which the colonists had received directed them to make a settlement at as great a distance from the mouth of the river as its depth permitted, even if that distance ran over a hundred miles.³

The point of land to which they gave the name of Archer’s Hope had many of the physical features they were seeking. The soil was marked by considerable fertility, and there was an abundance of the finest timber near at hand. The spot could also be put in a state of defence without the expenditure of much labor. An insurmountable obstacle, however, to its selection as the site of the proposed Colony lay in the fact, that the water near the banks of the stream in that vicinity was too shallow to allow a ship to be moored very close to the shore. At Jamestown Island, on the other hand, the depth of the river was so great that a large vessel could ride in safety just off the land, with its cables tied to the nearest trees. The wide expanse of the Powhatan at this point doubtless had some influence upon the minds of the adventurers if they could have sailed up to the future site of Henrico or Richmond, and made their earliest settlement there, they would have felt themselves entirely swallowed up by the wilderness. At Jamestown not only could the approach of a foreign enemy be quickly discovered, but the pathway to the European world seemed to be less obstructed. The length of time during which the community at this place remained the only town in Virginia would seem to indicate that the spot had some advantages apart from the ease with which it could be defended from an attack by water or by land. Henrico was built for the purpose of displacing the first settlement, at least in part, but Henrico soon fell into decay. Not until the capital was removed to Williamsburg

did Jamestown wholly lose its importance, but this was in some measure due to the fact that it was by legislative enactment the seat of local government.¹

The proper site for the Colony was at the modern Hampton. The subsequent course of events proved that there was no real danger to be anticipated from a foreign enemy if a settlement had been made in that general neighborhood. The expulsion of the Indians from the surrounding fields was to be brought about at an early date, and if it had taken place at once, the danger of attack precipitated would not have been less great. The adjacent country had been cleared of woods, and lay ready for the English hoe and spade. The climate on the whole was more healthy than that of Jamestown. Every local condition was favorable to the immediate success of the Colony if it had been planted there.²

The first step taken by the Englishmen, as soon as they had secured a foothold on Jamestown Island, was to begin the erection of a fort, a precaution which their situation made imperative. Two weeks after their arrival the colonists began to sow the English wheat brought over in the ships. As there was no cleared ground on the island when the foundation of the settlement was laid, this grain

must have been planted in soil from which the trees used in the construction of the fort had been cut away, since in an interval as brief as a fortnight there was but little time for any additional destruction of the forest.¹ The first wheatfield in Virginia lay in part at least upon “two mountains,” to use the phrase of the chronicler, by which it was intended to describe only rising ground. Whatever the object leading to the selection of this spot, whether the greater safety it ensured to the laborers from the elevated situation or its proximity to the fort, the soil must have been fertile, for by the fifteenth of June, just seven weeks after the original planting, the wheat had sprung up to the height of an average man.²

A garden was laid off when the ground was cleared for wheat, and the seeds of fruits and vegetables, not indigenous to the country, planted, including the melon and the potato, the pineapple and the orange. The settlers observed that these different fruits and vegetables prospered, although no special degree of care was taken in preparing the land for the reception of the seed, or in removing every obstruction to the growth of the plants after they had begun to expand. The first effort to produce cotton on the North American continent was also made at the same time.³ It is interesting to discover that upon the threshold of the Colony’s existence, the adaptability of the soil and climate to the cultivation of the most valuable grades of tobacco was suspected, a

conclusion to which the Englishmen were doubtless led by specimens of the cured leaf presented to them by their Indian hosts. The prediction was ventured in the first spring after their arrival, that by the end of the year they would be producing that commodity to the value of five thousand pounds sterling, and this anticipation would have proved correct but for the fact that the attention of the colonists soon became absorbed in the struggle for food to sustain a bare existence.¹ This is the explanation of the statement which Smith made at a later date, that during the first three years after the foundation of Jamestown no thought was given to tobacco.²

In the course of the winter following the settlement of Jamestown, the colonists lived in a state of great abundance on fish and game maize bread, peas and pumpkins, only a small part of which had been obtained by their own industry.³ Up to this time, the area of ground cleared did not exceed four acres; this was not sufficient to afford an adequate supply of food even if the whole of it had been planted in grain, vegetables, and fruits.⁴ The plenty prevailing in the winter of 1607-1608 was due to purchases from the Indians, many of the colonists going so far as to barter in exchange, but without the knowledge of the authorities, the agricultural implements that had been brought over, such as mattocks, pickaxes and hoes.

In the spring of 1608, twelve months subsequent to the

foundation of Jamestown, a second attempt was made by the settlers to produce English grain. When Captain Nelson’s ship, which had come from England, was sighted in the river below Jamestown Island on the twentieth of April, the larger number of the colonists were actively engaged in hewing down trees and sowing wheat, and on hearing the alarm from the fort, which was really raised in apprehension lest the approaching vessel belonged to the Spaniards, they rushed to their arms under the impression that the Indians had begun another assault upon the town.¹ This is the first intimation in the agricultural history of Virginia as to the removal of the forests with a distinct view to the production of crops, the trees cut down in the previous spring having been destroyed for the purpose of erecting a fort rather than for opening the land for cultivation. Clearing new grounds has always been regarded as the most tedious and searching as the task of the Virginian laborer, and however frequently he may be called upon to perform it, he always shrinks from the tax which it imposes upon his strength and patience. In the spring of 1608, the colonists had not learned from the Indians the most primitive method of destroying forests, that is, by tearing the bark in circles from the lower trunks of the trees before the spring sap has begun to rise from the roots. They were in need of open ground, and the only way to obtain it in a short time was by the application of the axe to the primæval woods surrounding them on all sides.

There has been transmitted to us an amusing account of the sensations which the pioneer wood-choppers experienced in cutting down the enormous walnut, oak, ash, gum, and cypress trees growing in the valley of the Powhatan. It is interesting to find that, unlike their

successors up to the present day, many of these woodchoppers discovered in the task of removing the forest a source of pleasure and recreation. These early axemen were for the most part gentlemen by birth, and it was remarked that thirty or forty performed the work of a hundred men of the lower rank who were driven to it by the command of their superiors. In the band of men whom Smith, after the return of Newport from his unsuccessful expedition into the Monacan country, led to a point below Jamestown for the purpose of obtaining clapboard, there were two English gallants who had recently come out to the Colony, either in search of adventures or to escape the consequences of dissipated lives at home. Although they had never before cut down a tree, they soon acquired skill in the management of an axe, and were as delighted as school-boys in listening to the thunder of the trees in crashing to the ground. At first, however, their hands were blistered by the unaccustomed touch of the helves, which caused them to exclaim with an oath at every third stroke. To put a stop to this, the president ordered that every oath should be numbered, and, when the work of the day was over, for each oath a can of water was poured down the sleeve of the person who had been guilty of uttering it.¹

It was not until Smith was placed in charge of the affairs of the Colony that a successful attempt was made by the Englishmen to plant Indian corn.¹ Previous to 1609 they had been absolutely dependent on the capricious and treacherous aborigines for a precarious supply of grain when the stock from England was exhausted. The few small fields which they had been able to sow in wheat had not produced a large quantity. The mass of the settlers, wishing to return to England, were anxious that these experiments in agriculture should fail, and as soon as the hope of finding gold proved to be untenable, they sought to disperse all the agricultural implements upon which the people must rely for a permanent subsistence. In introducing the culture of maize among the colonists, Smith was only giving an additional proof of his sound practical judgment. It is obvious that

Indian corn was much better adapted to the fertile loam of the newly cleared land than the imported seeds of English wheat. The grain could also be more easily and conveniently ground, and the meal was convertible into more forms of bread. Doubtless by this time those qualities which made it more nourishing than flour to men engaged in arduous labor had been observed. Smith had been exposing himself to serious peril in his efforts to obtain a large quantity of the native grain. This source of supply was necessarily an uncertain one. In the spring of 1608 two Indians fell into his hands, and he determined to make use of their knowledge of the proper manner of cultivating maize; he ordered that forty acres should be carefully broken up,¹ and that in the different plats of these forty acres the grain of the country should be planted in strict conformity to the Indian rule; that is, in squares, and with an interval of four feet between the holes receiving the seeds. The entire operation was performed with the assistance and under the immediate superintendence of the Indian prisoners, who thus enjoyed the honor of being the first of their race to instruct for an immediate practical purpose the Englishmen at Jamestown in the art of cultivating a crop which was to enter so deeply into the economic life of the modern communities of North America. The yield of the forty acres, the first maize produced in any quantity in the boundaries of the United States by people of English blood of which we have any authentic record, was of as small importance as a single sand upon the shores of the sea, in comparison with the many thousand millions of bushels² forming

the annual crop of the republic at the present time. Never has there been on this continent, however, an equal number of acres of maize which were invested with so deep an historic interest, or upon which so vital an issue depended. Of the harvest of these forty acres, a part at least was never garnered by the men who planted the seed. When the Third Supply arrived in the autumn, the large body of persons who composed it were very short of provisions, and without scruple or hesitation they took possession of a field of seven acres, and in three days had devoured every ear of maize which it contained.¹

The forty acres which were planted in maize in the spring of 1609, were cultivated entirely by hand, the spade being probably the only instrument used in the process, or at the most, the spade, the shovel, and the hoe. The supply of these implements had been, as we have seen, seriously diminished by the colonists exchanging a large number of them for the different articles which the Indians offered for sale. Previous to the departure of Smith in the autumn of 1609, there is no reason to suppose that there was a plough at work in Virginia; it was not until the following year that the Company in England began to advertise for plough-wrights with a view to their importation into the Colony.² The plough at this time was a very primitive implement, its composition being of wood with the exception of the tips and shares, which were pieces of iron fastened to the parts most inclined to wear from their more direct contact with the soil. At the beginning of the seventeenth

century, this implement without tips or shares was to be purchased for two shillings, an amount equal in value to two dollars or more in modern American currency.¹ The cost of the plough in itself was so small that its price was no obstacle to its introduction into Virginia by the earliest settlers. The broad hoe in use was also valued at two shillings; a shovel, spade, frow and pickaxe were rated at eighteen pence a piece.² The absence of the plough was due in some measure to the want of draft animals and to the narrow surface under cultivation, but chiefly to the rough nature of the new grounds forming the larger portion of the fields of the colonists. The costliness of iron in this age made it inadvisable to use an implement of this character, having iron tips or shares, in soil constantly testing its power of resistance and endurance, for friction soon destroyed these two parts. Tips and shares were now more expensive than all the rest, a share alone at this time being valued at two shillings and two pence.³ A share unprotected by iron would have soon gone to pieces in the lands under cultivation in Virginia during the administration of Smith.

Even at this early period, it was observed that animals in the climate of Virginia propagated their species very fast, a record being made of the fact, that in eighteen months three sows, imported most probably in the First Supply, gave birth to sixty or seventy pigs.⁴ Hogs and

goats increased more rapidly at this time than any other kind of live stock, on account of the inexhaustible quantity of the food upon which they subsisted. It is said that if their number had been one million, there would still have been ample sustenance for them.¹ The cows, oxen, sheep, and horses were not only confined to a narrow pasturage in consequence of the vast extent of forest, but they were also exposed to the depredations of wolves. There were five hundred chickens in the Colony, although no food was specially provided for them.²

The interval between the departure of Smith and the arrival of Delaware was marked by a complete abandonment of the methods which the former adopted to place the Colony in a position to obtain its supplies of food entirely from the soil of Virginia. The hogs, poultry, goats, sheep, and horses were all, with the exception of one sow, killed and devoured by the settlers and Indians, and the few persons who survived the frightful Starving Time were compelled to rely for subsistence on roots, herbs, acorns, walnuts, berries, and fish. Lord Delaware arrived in Virginia in June, 1610, and only a few days after he reached Jamestown, Sir George Somers was despatched in company with Captain Argoll to the Bermudas, to procure from those islands, among other things,

many of the wild hogs which were so numerous there, to replace the hogs eaten by the colonists in the extremity of their distress.¹ During the ten months Delaware remained in Virginia, the time not spent by him in an aimless search for unknown mines, was devoted to promoting the cultivation of the soil; the hours of labor set by him for the settlers were from six until ten in the morning, and from two to four in the afternoon, a division most excellent as to the morning, but not so judicious as to the afternoon, except in the tempered months of the year.² The respectable but slow and ceremonious Governor, in his report to the Council as to his administration in the Colony, which appears to have been rather inglorious, states that during the winter he passed in Virginia he directed that much ground should be sowed in roots.³ These roots were doubtless turnips and carrots, which had a few years before been found to thrive in the valley of the Powhatan. The same ground had been, at the time of Delaware’s departure, this being in the following March, put into a condition to receive corn. The main dependence for food during his executive control seems to have been placed upon the store brought over from England, and upon the supply of maize which Argoll had been able to secure by trading with the Indians. Lord Delaware sought to test the virtue of the native grape by introducing into Virginia for the purpose of making wine a number of French vine dressers, who soon after their arrival proceeded to transplant the vine of the country.⁴ There

is no record as to the result of their experiment, but it was probably not attended with much success. At this time no provision was made for the protection of cattle in winter, not even for supplying them with food. Delaware remarked upon the fact as an indication of the mildness of the climate.¹ This was the beginning of the custom afterwards prevailing so generally in the Colony, and which has been continued to the present age, of permitting live stock to run at large in the fields and woods at all seasons of the year, without any addition to their provender beyond what they can themselves secure, the natural effect of which has been to reduce the size of the breeds.

Sir Thomas Dale reached Virginia in May, Delaware having left the Colony in the hope of restoring his health. Being a man of singular energy, decision, and firmness of character, Dale proceeded to enforce the same rules for the use of the soil which Smith had been practically the first to adopt. Instead of looking to the Indians for the principal supplies of corn, or depending upon the store of imported provisions, he determined to secure an abundance of food through the industry of the settlers themselves. The second day after his arrival at Point Comfort, he visited Forts Henry and Charles, not only to examine the condition of these fortifications, but also to observe the character of the surrounding soil with a view to planting it in corn. Collecting together the men who had accompanied him from England and a part of the garrison occupying Fort Algernon, which was situated near to Point Comfort, Forts Charles and Henry standing on Southampton River, he set them to clearing the fields in the neighborhood of Fort Henry, to digging the ground, and to dropping and

covering up the seed. The work of preparing the fields around Fort Charles he gave into the general charge of Captain Davis. He then departed for Jamestown, which he reached on Sunday, the 19th, and there found the inhabitants playing bowls in the streets.¹ Although May was now drawing to a close, Captain Percy, who had been left at the head of the Colony by Delaware, an honorable but weak man, who, like Delaware, would never have been advanced but for his rank, had taken no steps to compel the settlers to plant corn. The gardens had fallen into a

state of great neglect, a few seeds only having been put into the ground. Careful provision, however, had been made for the preservation of the cows, oxen, oats, hogs, and poultry imported by Delaware. Dale, with characteristic promptness, at once outlined measures that would remove the evil conditions now prevailing. The first of these measures has an unusual importance, from the fact that it held out to the colonists in a modified form the right of holding private property, a right which had not as yet been granted. It was proposed to assign a separate garden to each man, and to lay off a common garden to be devoted to the cultivation of hemp and flax. The first stable erected in Virginia, so far as the records show, was designed by Dale at this time. A building was also projected for the kine, for which Dale provided further by directing that hay should be gathered in season to serve for their food in winter. Special precautions were taken by him to put a stop to the depredations of the Indians upon the stock of cattle, a block-house being erected for this purpose on the mainland. Even before the departure of Smith, in 1609, the hogs, the animals most disposed to wander, had to be transported to, in island in the river, until recently known as Hog Island, in order to escape the clutches of the Indian marauders; many, however, remained in the woods on the banks of the Powhatan, and increased so enormously in Dumber, in consequence of the mild climate and the abundance of roots and mast, that they became more plentiful than deer. It was said at the time that the savages, as compared with the English, destroyed the wild bogs in a proportion of eight to two. The block-house built by Dale was intended to protect only the cattle ranging on Jamestown Island. Soon after his arrival he issued a proclamation commanding the colonists to be careful not to allow their live stock to

wander, in which he had in view the depredations of wolves as well as of Indians.¹

It is an indication of the energy of Dale that on the third day after he reached Jamestown, he visited the former site of the Paspaheigh village, situated a short distance away,² his object being to discover whether the soil there was adapted to the production of hemp and flax, as he inferred would be the case from the fact that it was reported to be excellent ground for grain.³ It would seem that Dale was anxious to cultivate flax and hemp in a considerable quantity, as it had already been determined to lay off a garden for this purpose, and probably he hoped to find a site for this garden at Paspaheigh preferable to any that was to be observed in the vicinity of Jamestown. The fields which had been abandoned by the tribes residing there when the country was first settled were discovered to be overgrown by shrubs and bushes, and it was too late in the season to remove them and then prepare the

soil for the desired crops.¹ Dale decided to erect a new town at some point enjoying natural advantages, both in climate and situation, superior to those of Jamestown. While waiting until the planting at Kecoughtan was finished, a large number of persons who would be required in the construction of the projected town being engaged in that work, he set men to felling timber and fashioning rails, palings, and posts to be used as soon as the building should begin. When the completion of the planting at Kecoughtan permitted him to act, he proceeded very cautiously before he finally selected a site combining the advantages which he wished to secure. He first explored the Nansemond and afterwards the Powhatan. Many weeks must have been absorbed in these excursions, for it was not until September that he led a large body of colonists to Henrico, the modern Farrar’s Island, the spot which he had chosen for the new settlement.² Sir Thomas Gates

had now arrived in Virginia. It was evidently Dale’s original intention practically to abandon Jamestown, his purpose being to leave there only fifty men with a commander to protect the cattle.¹ The arrival of Gates, his superior officer, seems to have changed this plan. Henrico was situated in a fertile region clear in great measure of forest, and was capable of being easily defended. He first surrounded the site of the proposed town, a plat of seven acres, with a paling, an undertaking which must have been thoroughly performed, a large force of men being employed in it for ten or twelve days. He then erected a second pale across the neck of the peninsula, doubtless along the line of the present Dutch Gap Canal. Two miles inland he raised a third paling, which stretched from the river on the one side of the peninsula to the river on the other side, and in the extensive area thus secured he laid off fields which would furnish a supply of grain sufficient not only for the population then living in Virginia, but for as many colonists as were likely to arrive in the course of the following three years. The separate corn-fields were also surrounded by palings as a protection against the cattle of the settlers, and doubtless also against wild deer.

In order to obtain a range for hogs, Dale determined to build a paling on the south side of the river. This protected a circuit of twelve English miles. A number of rude huts were raised at certain points on the line of the fence and placed under the supervision of commanders. In December, Dale seized upon the lands of the Appomattox Indians lying on the Powhatan near the mouth of

the Appomattox River, and composed of many miles of fertile champaign and woodland. This new territory he divided into Hundreds. He then built a paling two miles in length from the Appomattox to the Powhatan, shutting in an area of eight English miles, and here in the spring of 1612 he planted corn. Rochdale Hundred was formed by the erection of a pale four miles in length from river to river, and this ensured an additional area of twenty circuit miles in which the live stock could browse in security. At certain intervals along the lines of these pales, houses were put up, the occupants of which formed a guard not only for the population of the Hundreds, but also for the hogs and cattle, many of which had been imported.¹ When Dale came over in the spring of 1611, he had brought with him sixty cows, and in the summer of the same year Sir Thomas Gates had reached the Colony, having, as a part of the cargo of his fleet, one hundred kine and two hundred hogs.² The animals were transported in three ships after a model known as the caraval, which was probably used for this purpose in the present instance on account of the room which it afforded above deck, the animals having an abundance of fresh air, and the flooring being kept clean with ease. When the fleet was first sighted as it was making its way up the river, these strange vessels led the people at Jamestown to believe that the Spaniards had appeared in Virginia, and at once a great commotion arose.³

It was not until 1612 that the cultivation of tobacco, even in patches of a few plants, began among the English

settlers. Hitherto their attention had been confined entirely to products that could be used as food, to grain, vegetables, beef, and pork. To obtain grain and vegetables, they had been in the habit of relying in part upon the stores of the savages. Some crop was needed that, from the readiness with which it could be sold in England, would furnish means for the purchase of clothing and other necessaries. So far, the shipments from Virginia had been limited to a few articles like sassafras and clapboard, which could not properly be included among agricultural commodities. That the consumption of tobacco in England was already very large, may be inferred from the fact that it was supposed, only two years after the experiment of 1612, that the amount used entailed a national outlay of two hundred thousand pounds sterling.¹ It has already been pointed out that the adaptability of the soil of Virginia to the plant was recognized at an early date, and that confident anticipations were entertained as to the profitableness of its culture, which, however, were not at once turned into a reality, because the question of obtaining a supply of food was for several years of the foremost consideration with the settlers. The first colonist who was led to make a trial of the weed which was to exercise such an enormous influence on the history of Virginia and the United States, was the celebrated John Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas. His attention was in a measure called to it by the fact, that he was himself addicted to the habit of smoking.² In Virginia

the plant could only be gotten by cultivating it, or buying it from the savages. It does not appear to have been of spontaneous growth in the soil of the country. Even to-day, when so much tobacco is produced in the State, and when it has been the staple crop for two hundred and seventy-five years, we do not observe it springing up by the roadside as if it were an ordinary weed which spreads without the intervention of the hands of man. As the Indians and the colonists were so constantly at war, Rolfe was probably induced to cultivate a small patch for his own use as a means of obtaining a certain supply. Secondary to this motive was a desire to find some commodity that could be sold at a profitable rate in the markets of England, thus advancing the prosperity of the settlers, and promoting the success of the Company. This condition appeared to be fulfilled in the case of tobacco, if it could be produced in quantities large enough, and of sufficient excellence in quality to allow an active competition with the importers of the Spanish leaf, which at this time met the demand in England.

The experiment of Rolfe would probably have led to the exclusive cultivation of tobacco by the colonists, but for the fact that Sir Thomas Dale was able to govern their action. His first object was to provide them with an abundance of grain. In 1614 alone, it is stated that there were five hundred acres planted in maize. The changes which he introduced were well calculated to keep the common store always ample. Previous to the arrival of Dale, the settlers did not have even a modified interest in the soil, or a partial ownership in the returns of their

labor. Everything produced by them went into the store, in which they had no proprietorship. The influence of this fact was most obstructive to the growth of the community in prosperity; there was a very natural disposition on the part of the colonists to idle over their tasks, or to avoid the performance of these tasks altogether, and it was observed that those who were most honest and energetic by nature, were comparatively indolent and indifferent in attending to their duties in the field.¹ So capable and resolute a man as Dale would not be long in detecting the cause of the evil, or in applying the most direct measures for removing it. Reference has already been made to the fact, that as soon as he reached Jamestown he consulted with the resident Council as to the advisability of allotting to each man a “private garden.” This term seems to have been the expression for private holding, “common garden” being applied to ground set apart for public uses. The judgment of the Council must have been favorable to Dale’s suggestion, for at a later date he assigned to a large number of the colonists who were distinguished for superior qualities, three acres apiece, to be held under lease. The most prominent of these men was William Spencer, who was described as honest, industrious, and valiant. The tract of each person was referred to as a farm, and the person himself as a farmer—that is to say, a man who paid rent as the condition of his tenure. The amount of this rent in grain was two and a half barrels for himself and each of his servants. Every tenant was required to work for the commonwealth one month in the year, but this was not to conflict with either seed-time or harvest.² In order to

restrict the degree of attention to be paid to tobacco, Dale commanded that no man should be permitted to plant it until he had put down two acres in grain, an indication that as soon as the farmers were left to follow their own inclination they were disposed to neglect the cultivation of grain in their eagerness to produce the former commodity.¹ Not all the colonists were granted the privilege of tenants.² Those persons who were not so distinguished were placed in what was known as the common garden,³ being compelled to turn over to the general store all the results of their labor during eleven months of the year, the fruit of the twelfth being left in their hands to be disposed of to their own private advantage.⁴ A section of these agricultural servants, for such

was the relation which they bore to the community, were allowed, in addition to a month, one day in each week from the first of May until harvest, thus giving them much time to look after their private crops. These men were employed in Charles Hundred. To them alone seems to have been extended the promise of an absolute freedom, to take effect in 1617. It is a significant fact that they were moved to petition Gates for their release at the suggestion of Dale, whose name is associated in the history of Virginia with so much severity, but who was really only harsh to the indolent and worthless.¹

Dale was not content with establishing a system of tenancy; he put in force a rule assuring every man with a family who arrived in the Colony a house of four rooms or more, which he was permitted to occupy without payment of rent. In the vicinity of this house, twelve acres of ground carefully fenced in were consigned to him on condition that he confined his husbandry to the cultivation of wheat, maize, roots, and herbs, it being the policy of Dale to produce chiefly what could be used as food. Provisions in quantity sufficient to furnish him and his family with an ample supply for twelve months were delivered to the new comer, but after this interval he was expected to earn his own support unaided and the support of those who were dependent upon him. Tools were also presented to him, and, for the more comfortable subsistence of his family, poultry, swine, several goats, and even a cow were given to him.² The authorities could

now afford to show liberality, for there were at this time two hundred horned cattle in Virginia and an equal number of goats. Swine roamed in herds in the woods, the property of any one who could capture them. Many hogs were owned by private persons, while others belonged to the public. The number of horses, mares, and colts was small;¹ some of those in the Colony had in the previous year been imported by Argoll, having been seized in the expedition against Canada.² The chickens had increased very much, and there were also many turkeys, pigeons, and peacocks.³ The large number of live stock in Virginia during Dale’s administration was said to be one of the causes for the growth of population in later years, the regulation established with respect to an allowance of hogs, goats, and cows, to every immigrant who was accompanied by his family, being a strong inducement to remove thither, the reputation of which continued after Dale had left the Colony.⁴

At the time of Dale’s departure, the settlements in Virginia consisted of Henrico, Bermuda, West and Shirley Hundreds, Jamestown, Kecoughtan, and Dale’s Gift.

The male inhabitants were divided into officers, farmers or renters, and laborers or servants. It was the duty of each officer to maintain a careful watch over the division of population assigned to him for protection, but this did not relieve him of the necessity of earning his own support. The laborers belonged to two sections, those who were employed in the common garden, and those who were employed in the trades of smith, shoemaker, carpenter, tailor, and tanner, who, however, were not exempted from the task of tilling the ground.¹ At the close of Dale’s administration there were thirty-eight persons in Henrico, a majority of whom were tenants who held their lands under covenant; the remainder were in part at least their servants. The commander was Captain James Davis. Of the hundred and nineteen inhabitants of Lower Bermuda Hundred, whose commander was Captain Yeardley, seventeen were farmers or tenants. Thirty-one of the fifty inhabitants of Jamestown were tenants, the commander there being Captain Francis West. The farmers at Kecoughtan numbered eleven in a population of twenty. Captain Webbe was the commander here. There were twenty-five persons at West and Shirley Hundreds, all of whom were engaged in planting under the supervision of Captain Madison. These men belonged to the class of laborers who were employed for the public wealth; the restriction of their attention to tobacco shows that it had, only four years after the first experiment of Rolfe, become one of the staple crops of the Colony.² The most experienced judges had already recognized the superior quality of the leaf produced in Virginia. John Rolfe ventured, in the light of the improvement made in its cultivation and

manipulation, to predict that after the test of longer trial and the incurrence of a little more expense, it would bear a favorable comparison with the tobacco of the West Indies.¹ Hamor, who seems to have had an accurate knowledge of every grade of this commodity, declared that the Colony, as early as 1614, afforded a plant equal to that of Trinidad, and as strong, sweet, and pleasant as any cultivated under the sun, and he stated further, that the people were rapidly acquiring so much knowledge as to the best way of curing it that it must in a short time become as popular in England as the Spanish product.² By 1616, this knowledge must have been very much increased. Dale had probably been influenced by a very strong reason in allowing the culture of tobacco to be gradually extended until, as we have seen, it absorbed the whole attention of all the laborers in two of the settlements. There can be little doubt that at this time it commanded the readiest sale in England of all the products of Virginia. The cultivation of wheat and maize was intended entirely for the support of the persons who had been living in the Colony, or who proposed taking up their residence there; not one grain was for export; on the other hand, the whole of the tobacco crop was designed for shipment to England, there to be sold by the Company, and the proceeds returned in clothing for the settlers.

Tobacco, however, was not the only product of Virginia transported to England during the administration of Dale. Eleven commodities were at this time annually sent to the mother country, in the hope that the Colony

would soon be able to compete successfully with foreign merchants in supplying the English people with the articles which they were now compelled to purchase abroad.¹ Dale had established a vineyard at Henrico not long after the foundation of that settlement, covering an area of three acres, in which he planted the vines of the native grape for the purpose of testing their adaptability to the production of wines that could be substituted for those of France and Spain. Silk-worms were sent over in the winter of 1614, and in a few months grew to an extraordinary size. To such an extent did they flourish on the mulberry leaf in Virginia, that it was confidently expected that silk-making would become one of the most important industries of the Colony. Captain Martin about the same time tried experiments with the native silk-grass, transplanting many of the wild plants to a garden of his own, having been encouraged to do this by the excellence of the product obtained from them. He proposed to make this commodity one of the exports of Virginia.²

Great as were the agricultural improvements in the Colony during the administration of Dale, no plough as yet seems to have been brought into its plantations. None were in use there. Hamor, in 1614, indulged the hope that in the following year three or four ploughs would be set to work, there being now a sufficient number

of steers to draw them.¹ The spade and shovel, hoe and mattox, continued to be the only agricultural implements.

As Dale was now satisfied with the general condition of the Colony, he decided in the spring of 1616 to return to England,² affairs in Virginia being left in the guardianship of George Yeardley as deputy governor. The first act of Yeardley, in this new character, was one of extraordinary importance in its relation to the future growth of the country. By the terms of their agreement with Sir Thomas Gates made previous to his departure in 1614, the laborers in Charles Hundred could claim their freedom at the end of three years, and from this time enjoy the full returns of their own industry. They demanded now

that this privilege should be granted them, and the request received an affirmative response. Being set at liberty, it is stated that they reaped an abundant harvest.¹ It is a point of some interest to know what was the exact relation which they bore to the soil they cultivated in the summer of 1616. Some lands were held in the Colony at this time in fee simple.² The probability is that the emancipated laborers of Charles Hundred became tenants, who occupied the same footing as the farmers during the administration of Dale; this seems to be confirmed by the fact that a granary was erected in this Hundred, which, upon the arrival of Argoll in the following year, was found to be full of grain contributed by the tenants.³

Dale’s injunction as to the superior attention to be paid to the production of grain seems to have been carefully observed by his successor. Not only was the granary in Charles Hundred full when Argoll reached Jamestown in 1617, but there were stores of grain in all the plantations. It was said that at this time the part of the Company’s lands, known as the common garden, yielded a profit of three hundred pounds sterling; this profit must have been derived almost exclusively from the production of tobacco, as tobacco was the only crop shipped to England. The common garden was cultivated wholly by laborers bound to the Company by indentures.¹ The supply of grain upon which they were fed was obtained from the tenants in the form of rent, or from the savages as tribute. In the spring of 1617 the area in tobacco was probably extended; it was now cultivated in the streets, and even in the market-place of Jamestown.²

The first act of Argoll, who displaced Yeardley in the government, was to take possession of the granary in Charles Hundred and convert its contents to his own use, an act which was characteristic of the whole of the latter part of his administration.³ A short time after he assumed control in Virginia, he wrote to the authorities of the Company in England that great abundance prevailed in the Colony, and that the people were in a state of peace and contentment. In addition to large supplies of grain, there were one hundred and twenty-eight kine, eighty-eight goats, and hogs in great numbers. Argoll, in the

beginning of his official tenure, seems to have adopted measures to extend this favorable condition of agricultural affairs. Every tenant was required to cultivate two acres in grain under penalty of forfeiting his crops, and being reduced to slavery in the public service. Tradesmen were exempted from the binding force of this provision. Argoll sought to obtain an ample quantity of food for the cattle in the rigor of the winter season by prohibiting the use of hay in the preparation of the tobacco for sale; at this time it was the custom to pass the leaves through a period of sweating by throwing them into piles, and covering them with the long grass which had been cut in the surrounding marshes. The best tobacco, under a regulation adopted by Argoll, was not to be sold at a lower rate than three shillings a pound; and to compel the observance of this regulation, three years’ service for the benefit of the Colony was imposed upon any one who violated it.¹

In the following and closing year of Argoll’s administration, the cultivation of English wheat was attempted, thirty or forty acres being sown in this staple, but in consequence of the delay in harvesting it, much of the grain became overripe, and fell to the ground and was lost. What remained was placed in the barn erected for the protection of the kine in the time of Dale, where it was devoured by the rats and cattle.² A part of the ground in which this crop of wheat was produced had been broken up by the plough.³ Only one implement of this character was to be found in the Colony in a condition to be worked; there were a sufficient number of steers to serve for draft, but there was a lack of irons,

which were especially needed in the virgin soil wherever ploughs could be used, because the ground was full of obstructions destructive to implements unprotected by tips and shares. Harness for the steers was also required, by which, plough chains were probably meant.¹

The crops of grain and tobacco were during the summer of this year seriously injured by a severe drought, which was followed in some places by a heavy storm of hail that was still more destructive. The elements, however, were not so ruinous to the prosperity of Virginia as the rapacious spirit of Argoll. Instead of permitting the colonists, whose terms of service had expired, to go free, a right to which they were entitled from the beginning of his administration, he set them upon his own employments, giving liberty only to the few who were able to pay him an extraordinary amount in tobacco for their release.² He withdrew the laborers from the common garden, which had been the source of large revenue to the Company, and directed them to his own purposes. The grain that ought properly to have been devoted to the public use alone, a part of which use consisted in furnishing a supply to persons who had recently arrived, was expended by him entirely in sustaining his private servants. The public cattle, which like the grain was intended in great part to be distributed among the new corners, thus offering strong inducements to persons in England to emigrate to the Colony, were either killed by him with a view to the disposition of the hides to his own profit, or they were sold to the tenants and planters. By allowing sailors and masters of ships, as well as passengers, to purchase most of the tobacco and all of the

sassafras produced in Virginia, the sales being probably made in a majority of instances by himself, as he had drawn into his own hands all the resources of the Colony, the object for which the magazine was established, and upon the success of which the welfare of the population was so dependent, was practically frustrated.¹ When he absconded from Virginia in 1619, by the connivance of his patron, the Earl of Warwick, the leader of the faction which was to be so bitterly hostile to the new government, he left the Colony in a state of thorough exhaustion, although its prosperity would have been assured had it been maintained in the condition to which the firm and sagacious administration of Sir Thomas Dale had raised it. The area of ground known as the common garden had fallen into complete neglect, and was doubtless already springing up in that thick array of bushes which, as was observed, had overgrown the deserted fields at Paspaheigh. There were no tenants or servants at work for the Company. No stores of corn were to be found resembling the granary at Charles Hundred which Argoll had appropriated when he arrived in Virginia. The Indians had ceased to furnish a supply of grain by way of tribute. The maize obtained from the tenants and savages, as we have seen, amounted to twelve hundred bushels annually previous to the administration of Argoll. It had now fallen off apparently to nothing. Beginning his control of the affairs of Virginia with the strict enforcement of the regulation that every cultivator

of the ground should plant two acres in grain, he ended with this regulation in entire abeyance. The lack of corn became so great in consequence of the exclusive attention paid to the culture of tobacco, that there would have been ground for anticipating a severe famine if two hundred quarters of meal had not been imported in the magazine. The only portion of the public stock of animals still unsold or unslaughtered were six goats.¹ All this destruction or dispersion of property had been caused by Argoll without the receipt on the part of the Company of a penny in compensation. The only public property that they could recover was the cattle he had sold, and which still remained in the Colony. Instructions were given to Delaware, when he set sail for Virginia, to drive together all the bullocks, cows, and steers distributed among different purchasers, and to preserve them for the public use; the tobacco and goods in the possession of Argoll were to be seized, as a partial indemnity for the gross injury he had inflicted upon the interests of the Company. Delaware died before he could perform this mission.²

The arrival of Sir George Yeardley in 1619 is the starting-point of a new era in the history of the Colony, which is hardly less impressive in its agricultural than in its political aspects. The first six months of his administration are among the most memorable in the history, not only of Virginia, but also of America. It was during this period that the earliest representative body that came together on this continent assembled.³ The erection of this

local legislature had the most beneficial influence on the agricultural interests of the Colony, as it was composed of burgesses who had a personal knowledge of the agricultural needs of Virginia. Among its principal enactments were laws with reference to grain and tobacco, silk and vines. The same brief interval saw the introduction of the negro slave, who in time was to become the principal agricultural laborer of one-half of the United States. It also saw, what was more important in its immediate consequences, the extension of an absolute freedom to those persons among the colonists who had come into Virginia during the previous administrations, and had been detained beyond their legal time in the service of the Company. The right of acquiring property in fee simple was now freely granted. Every one of the “ancient” planters¹ became entitled to what was defined as a dividend, the term applied to a certain area of soil. William Spencer and Thomas Barret, who had been the first to go forth as farmers under the regulation adopted by Sir Thomas Dale, were now the first to choose the lands which they were to hold in absolute ownership. The conversion of a common laborer into a farmer had, as we have seen, an immediate effect in stimulating the industry of that large section of the population who were chosen to be the beneficiaries of the provision as to the conditional tenure. Far more powerful was the influence of a fee simple title upon those who received this invaluable gift on account of their long connection with the Colony; it is stated that a strong

rivalry at once sprang up among them as to which one should excel in building and planting.¹

When private ownership in the soil in fee simple became general, one thousand acres were reserved for the maintenance of the ministers of the gospel in Virginia, three thousand for the support of the Governor, and ten thousand for the endowment of the university which was projected for the education of the Indians. For its own use the Company retained twelve thousand acres, in anticipation that the remaining parts of the country would be gradually taken up under patents by colonists who would pay a small quit-rent in return. The lands reserved for the Governor, the ministers, and the university were situated on the northern side of the Powhatan, and extended from Henrico to the Falls. The lands appropriated for the special use of the Company consisted of four apportionments of three thousand acres respectively, there being one apportionment in each of the four boroughs, beginning with Kecoughtan and ending with Henrico. The principal purpose sought in this general arrangement was to assure for the officers in Virginia a certain maintenance without the need of any reliance upon the resources of the Corporation in England. Whenever a new office was established, a certain number of acres

were attached to it. Thus when Thomas Nuce was appointed in 1619 the superintendent of the Company’s lands, twelve hundred acres were assigned to him as a means of paying his salary. Six hundred acres of this allotment were situated at Kecoughtan, four hundred at Charles City, one hundred at Jamestown, and one hundred at Henrico; these were the four boroughs in which the lands of the Company had been laid off, and it was expected that Nuce in superintending its property would also overlook that belonging to his own office. To the Treasurer, the Marshal, and the Cape Merchant respectively, who bore heavy responsibilities, fifteen hundred acres were granted; to the Physician and Secretary, five hundred acres each, and to the Vice-admiral, three hundred. An assignment of one thousand acres was made for the support of the master and usher of the East India School.¹

The apportionments of land would have been worthless if no provision had been made for their cultivation. A system of leases in consequence was adopted. To the Governor one hundred tenants were allowed; to the Treasurer and Marshal, fifty each; to the superintendent of the Company’s lands, forty; to the Secretary and Physician, twenty apiece; and to the Vice-admiral, twelve. Each one of these public officials, when his tenure ceased, was required to transmit to his successor the whole number of tenants who were by law attached to his office. It was the intention of the Company that each one should receive such an area of land and such a number of servants as would be sufficient to afford him an ample support as well

as to sustain the dignity of his position.¹ The plan was in large measure carried into practical effect. When Sir George Yeardley sailed from England in 1619 to assume control of the government of the Colony, he was accompanied by fifty tenants for the tillage of the lands assigned to his office, these persons being transported at the expense of the Company, but furnished with supplies at his own charge.² As the outlay in sending passengers directly to Virginia was very heavy, there being at this time no freight to be brought back by the same vessel to England, the ships engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries were employed to convey the tenants to the Colony, stopping there on their way to the waters of the North.³ In the interval between April, 1619, and May, 1620, eighty additional tenants were dispatched to be placed on the lands of the Governor, one hundred and thirty on the lands of the Company, one hundred on the College lands, and fifty on the Glebe. To ensure the contentment of those among them who were without wives, young women were imported to be married to them, this shipment being as much a speculative venture on the part of the stockholders in England who subscribed to it, as if the maidens had been so much unconscious merchandise. Hardly less important were the large number of boys who were forwarded to Virginia, during the same period, to serve as apprentices in husbandry to the tenants.⁴

The terms of the agreement which the Company entered

into with the tenant on the public lands, were in great measure the same as those which had been formulated by Dale a few years before under similar circumstances. He was transported to Virginia free of expense to himself, and after his arrival he was provided with victuals for twelve months, and for the same length of time was supplied with apparel, weapons, tools, and implements. In addition, he was presented with a certain number of cattle. As a return for these benefits, the tenant was expected to pay to the Company one-half of his annual crops, and to remain in its employment for seven years, at the expiration of which interval he was at liberty to renew the contract or to remove to land which had been granted to him as a dividend.¹

The reports as to the operation of this system of tenant right are contradictory. In a letter to the Company in England, the Governor and Council in Virginia went so far as to say that the persons who worked on half shares, with the exception of those who were attached to the College lands, found themselves unable even to earn food sufficient for their needs during three months of the year.² This was probably an exaggeration. In the extent to which it was accurate, it was explained in large measure by circumstances which it was impossible for the tenants to control. Many are said to have had just ground for complaint in the fact that they were assigned to cleared lands worn out by a course of cultivation prolonged over a number of years, and which were, therefore, in no condition to bring forth a profitable crop of tobacco.³ Pory

openly asserted that the officers of the Company made an improper use both of their tenants and the tenants’ servants. The servants were taken away from their masters and removed by the officers to their private estates, while the tenants themselves were kept so constantly engaged in rowing the officers to and fro between Jamestown and the lands assigned to the different official positions, lying some near the mouth of the river and some near the Falls, that it was not in their power to pay the rent expected of them.¹ In spite of these obstacles, which were probably not quite as great as Pory represented them to be,² there is reason to think that a fair proportion of the tobacco shipped from Virginia to England in the short interval before the massacre, had been raised by tenants who were seated on the public domain. The George, which arrived in England in March, 1622, was loaded in great part with a cargo that was the product of the lands assigned by the Company to the College and Treasurer or reserved

for itself.¹ The amount of rent exacted of the tenants was undoubtedly too large, being very much in excess of that which was required of the farmers during the administration of Dale. So unsatisfactory did the working of this rate prove to the Company, and so much discontent did it breed among the tenants themselves, that in 1622, barely three years after the original provision, the Governor and Council in Virginia were instructed to modify it. By the old regulation, the tenant was to transfer to the Company one-half of the crops of his fields, but if the harvest failed, he was relieved of responsibility; by the terms of the new, he was to settle his rent by delivering twenty bushels of grain, sixty pounds of tobacco, and one pound of silk. In addition, he could be required to give his labor to the public works for six days. In order to ensure the performance of these conditions, at least three tenants were made to live together, each one being bound for the payment of the specified rent.²

It is interesting to note the different implements which the Company provided for the tenants who were sent to Virginia to cultivate the public lands. The allowance seems to have been made on the basis of a family of six persons. It consisted of five broad and five narrow hoes, three shovels, two spades, two band-bills, two broad and five felling axes, two hatchets, two steel saws, two hand-saws and one whipsaw, two hammers, two augers, two piercers, six chisels, three gimlets, two frows, two pick-axes, one grindstone, and nails of many sizes. The stern conditions which were to confront the tenant on his arrival were indicated in the arms furnished him for protection;

these were one suit of light armor, a long gun, a sword and belt, a bandoleer, twenty pounds of powder, and sixty pounds of shot and lead.¹

When Yeardley assumed control of affairs in Virginia, the Company, with a view to increasing the production of other articles, required that there should be inserted in all formal grants of land a covenant that the patentees should not apply themselves either wholly or principally to the culture of tobacco, but should divide their attention among a number of commodities carefully specified in each deed. These commodities consisted in part of agricultural products, that is to say, Indian corn, wheat, flax, silk-grass and wine, a portion of which, as we have seen, England was anxious to be able to purchase in the Colony, in order that she might escape the heavy charges of the continental merchants, as well as to avoid all possibility of an interruption in her supply.² As a further provision to ensure a permanent diversion from tobacco as the exclusive crop of Virginia, it was proposed that the only payment that the Company should receive from the planters for the servants to be sent them should be in the form of the commodities named.³ As laborers were so much needed by the colonists, it was anticipated that this

would be highly promotive of a larger cultivation of these commodities. As a still stronger inducement, the planter who excelled in their production was to be allowed the privilege of being the first to make a choice among the apprentices and indented servants to be forwarded by the Company. A committee of merchants were to be appointed, who, from their particular knowledge of the value of the commodities to be fostered, could establish a schedule of rates at which these commodities could be sold in the English markets with profit by the planters of Virginia; this schedule was, however, hardly expected to include maize or wheat, as the reason for encouraging their production was to provide an abundance of grain for the Colony itself.

At the beginning of 1619, the commodities shipped from Virginia were confined to tobacco and sassafras. It was denied at the time that this was to be attributed to the planters. It was said that as the mass of products had to be deposited in the magazine for exchange, it lay in the power of the presiding director, who happened to be a trader, to exclude all but those which he wished to pass, by declining to fix any price upon them. This, it was urged, had been done by Alderman Johnson, who was the principal purchaser from the Company of the sassafras and tobacco imported into England, and who was, therefore, interested in the enlargement of the production of these articles, a result only to be accomplished by the suppression of all efforts to vary the commodities of the Colony. It was to remove this condition that the Company proposed to adopt a general schedule.¹ The preference

shown for tobacco, as will be pointed out later, lay deeper than any scheme of a designing alderman to give it the first importance by making it the only profitable crop for cultivation. Whether or not the members of the Company, who had control of its administration in 1619, recognized the force of the economic reasons causing that plant to be the most lucrative crop, they displayed great earnestness in carrying out the well-known wishes of the King, going so far as to send a treasurer to Virginia, who was not only to collect all that was due the Company in the form of quit-rents, a new source of revenue created by the subdivision of the public lands, but also to see that the instructions as to the degree of attention to be paid to the staple commodities be put in force by the authorities; an indication that it was anticipated that even the public officers of the Colony would be reluctant to subordinate the cultivation of tobacco to that of the other products of the soil.¹

It will be interesting to inquire in some detail as to the steps which were taken to promote the cultivation of the staple commodities. One of the earliest laws passed by the first Assembly that met in the Colony, the Assembly which Yeardley summoned in 1619, provided that every householder should reserve in store a barrel of Indian corn not only for himself, but also for every servant in his employment, but this grain was to be used only in case their necessities compelled it. The planter who had arrived in Virginia in the course of the previous twelve months was exempted from the scope of this law.²

Yeardley seems, during the first year of his administration, to have given special attention to the cultivation of grain with a view to removing all prospect of a famine. To such an extent did he neglect the cultivation of tobacco during this period, that he thought it advisable to explain his motive to the Company in England, thus showing that its members had not determined to diminish very materially the amount of that commodity to be produced in the Colony.¹ Yeardley appears to have been very successful with the wheat he sowed very soon after his arrival. It was reported in England that he had secured two harvests from the same field in the course of the same season, the second of which had sprung from seeds shaken to the earth by the wind as it passed over the heads of the preceding crop. After this second crop of wheat had been reaped, the ground was planted in Indian corn, from which there was an abundant yield in the autumn. It is quite certain, however, that the Indian corn had to be gathered before it had fully matured, there being hardly an interval of three months between the time when the second wheat harvest took place and the arrival of frost. It was said that the ground was of such extraordinary fertility, that the maize planted in it germinated and sprang up into stalks with great rapidity. The statement as to the second growth of wheat has its only satisfactory explanation in the fact that in the seventeenth century the process of cutting this grain was so prolonged, owing to the use of sickles and books, the only implements at this time employed, that a considerable part of a crop standing upon a field of some extent became overripe before the harvest was completed and fell to the ground. When a second crop was reaped from the same field in the

course of the same year, it consisted generally of barley that had been sowed in July in the soil from which English wheat had been removed, the barley being harvested in October before the frost had had an opportunity of blighting it.¹ When, in 1619, Rolfe was repudiating the scandalous depreciation of Virginia by its enemies, the first information as to which had been brought over by Governor Yeardley himself, he declared that the production of English grain in the Colony, instead of being at the rate of sixteen bushels an acre, as the persons who opposed the prosperity of Virginia asserted, had often amounted to thirty bushels.² Hamor had remarked on the superior character of the wheat grown in the Colony, one grain multiplying to forty grains, and the head of the blade often being a span long. The barley, in his opinion, was as fine as any seen in England.³

The chief obstacle to overcome in the beginning in the production of wheat was the excessive fertility of the lands at this time under cultivation. Wheat sowed in fields recently cleared of woods showed an enormous development in the stalk, but a stunted growth in the grain; to secure a satisfactory crop from new grounds, it was always necessary to precede it by a crop of tobacco or maize, which reduced the fertility of the soil. The character of the wheat seems to have gradually deteriorated until it failed to give satisfaction as seed. In January, 1621-1622, the Governor and Council wrote to the Company in London to request that a supply should be sent to the Colony to be sown, the annual crop in Virginia

having hitherto been raised from grain originally brought from Canada, but which had become puny and defective from continued improper cultivation. They also asked that the seed should be transported in the chaff, and in the passage across the ocean should be kept between decks. None was to be forwarded that was older than the last harvest. From the same source, it is learned that the amount of barley and oats produced in Virginia at this time was so small as to be unworthy of consideration. In compliance with the request of the authorities of the Colony, the Company at a general court made provision for dispatching to Virginia a pinnace containing not only wheat and barley, but also garden seeds and scions of fruit trees.¹

Among the staple commodities which Yeardley was directed by the Company to promote was flax, one of the indigenous products of the Colony; every family was required to cultivate one hundred plants, and the Governor himself five thousand. The Assembly of 1619 passed a law to enforce this provision, and further declared that if flax should be shown to be a ratable commodity, the number of plants which each family was expected to raise would be increased.² In 1622, Pony, the Secretary of the Council, forwarded to England specimens cultivated under the Company’s instructions, and they were pronounced by experts to be as excellent in texture as the flax from which the celebrated Cambaya stuffs were woven.³ The

Company was still more solicitous that the culture of the silk-worm should be introduced into Virginia. There was an essay in this culture during the few years Smith resided in the Colony, which he asserted was only prevented from being successful by the sickness of the master workman, in consequence of which no precautions were taken to protect the worms from the rats.¹ Reference has already been made to the importation of silk-worms in the time of Dale, which, as the result quite probably of the destructive course pursued during the administration of Argoll, ended in failure. The King was especially interested in the production of silk in Virginia. About 1607 a large number of weavers and throwsters from the continent had settled at Spitalfields and Morefields near London, with a view to establishing the silk industry in England, and the English Government was very anxious to extend them in their trade all the encouragement in its power. It would have been an advantage of the highest importance to them had they been able to secure their raw material relieved of the large profit obtained by foreigners in furnishing it; and it was also very desirable that there should be no interruption in the course of receiving their supply, a condition which could not be controlled when the producers of the raw material were foreign nations. In 1608, the first mulberry tree was planted in England, and King James himself entered actively into the cultivation of the silk-worm. The discovery of the mulberry in Virginia in such great numbers excited from the beginning the very reasonable hope that the Colony would in time produce large quantities of raw silk. At the first session of the House of Burgesses in 1619, the members, acting upon the instructions of the Company, passed a law that every man should

plant annually six mulberry trees during a period of seven years.¹ it was afterwards declared that a large number of the mulberry trees bore so many leaves that each tree would nourish a sufficient number of worms to produce silk to the value of five pounds. The vine-dressers soon began to plant mulberry slips, their example being imitated to some extent by the colonists.²

With a view to promoting an interest in silk culture, the Company were at pains to have the most approved works on the silk-worm translated into English and forwarded to the Colony for general distribution. Mr. Bonoel, the superintendent of the Royal Silk Establishment, composed a special treatise at their suggestion, in which he pointed out the proper manner of constructing rooms for silk-worms, as well as of planting mulberry trees. The treatise was published and many copies sent to Virginia, to which a large quantity of silk-worms were also dispatched from the royal collection in England.³ In 1620, a store of silk-worms were procured from Italy and Spain, and steps were also taken to obtain a supply from France. The Company secured an expert who had been an apprentice of one of the men employed in the Royal Silk Establishment, where he had been carefully trained by his master. The latter was allowed twenty pounds sterling in consideration of the release of this apprentice

with a view to his transportation to Virginia, and in further return for so large a sum, the master bound himself to instruct other apprentices in the art of silk culture in order that the Company might in the future have the benefit of their knowledge.¹ In the following year provision was made for obtaining a large supply of silk-worm seed from St. Valencia, which enjoyed the reputation of producing worms that prospered in other climates besides their own.² Raw silk previous to this time had sold in England for thirteen shillings and four pence a pound, and silk cods for two shillings and six pence, but in this year raw silk advanced to twenty-eight shillings.³

The massacre by the Indians had as disastrous an influence upon silk culture as it had upon the other industries of the Colony. So far as can be discovered, the actual production of this material previous to that event had amounted practically to very little, but this might well be due, as was claimed, to the fact that silk culture in Virginia had not yet passed the first stage of development. After the massacre, George Sandys, who as Treasurer was required to see to the enforcement of the Company’s instructions as to the staple commodities, earnestly strove to restore the culture of silk to the footing which it had occupied when it was so suddenly interrupted. He placed the silk-men at Elizabeth City, a place but little exposed, and compelled them to confine their attention to silk husbandry. A room for the worms was prepared at Lieutenant Pierce’s, which was considered to be the most

suitable for this purpose to be found in the Colony.¹ The period of service for which some of the silk-men were bound expiring, Sandys addressed a letter to Mr. Wrote in England, urging him to obtain from the superintendent of the Royal Silk Establishment two Frenchmen who were trained in the art of silk-making. He offered to pay such experts as annual wages, either twenty marks in coin, or tobacco to the value of twenty pounds sterling, and in addition, furnish all of their meals. Sandys admitted with evident regret that the planters in Virginia were so much absorbed in erecting houses and planting tobacco, that they showed no interest in silk culture.²

The effort to manufacture wine in the Colony began as early as the attempt to produce silk, and was, as in the instance of silk, prompted by a desire on the part of the English people to escape the heavy charges imposed by foreign importations. During the brief period of Smith’s residence in Virginia, the abundance of the wild grapes in the natural hedges had led the colonists to convert this fruit into wine, although the appliances in possession of the settlers for doing so must have been of the rudest nature. On a later occasion, a quantity, amounting to twenty gallons at least, was manufactured, and it was thought to resemble the French wines in flavor.³ Francis Maguel, who was in the Colony in 1609, declared that the wines expressed from the grapes of Virginia reminded

him of the Alicante which he had drunk in Spain.¹ The poor returns from the experiments of Delaware and Dale do not appear to have discouraged the Company in England. In 1619, they dispatched to Virginia several French vine-dressers with many slips of the finest vines that Europe afforded. These vine-dressers reported that the grapes of the Colony far excelled those of their native Languedoc, not only in abundance but also in variety; that the fruitage of one variety was so large that they refused to believe that it was the grape until they had opened the skin and examined the contents; and that they had planted their cuttings at Michaelmas, and obtained grapes from them in the following spring.²

The Assembly of 1619 showed as much solicitude in encouraging the cultivation of the vine as of the mulberry tree; every householder was compelled by law to plant ten cuttings and to protect them from injury, and at the same time was expected to acquire the art of dressing a vineyard, either by special instruction, or by personal observation.³ The Company was so much interested in the promotion of vine culture, that marked favor was s