create a colony of estates moderate in size; but, when the enterprising spirits who crossed the sea discovered how easy it was to stake out princely dominions, they managed by one means or another to engross within a short time all the lands on the seaboard and transform them into large plantations, thus forcing the small freeholders up into the piedmont.
Of these several schemes, that of tillage by servants sent out at the Company's expense proved to be the most evident failure. Supervision was difficult, for the colony was far away. There was little incentive to the laborer to put forth his best efforts because the results of his toil flowed into the corporation's warehouse and he gained little for himself beyond a bare subsistence.
Wretched idleness was the fruit of this program. Some improvement was made in 1611 when Governor Dale set apart three acres of land for each company laborer, gave him one month of free time in which to cultivate his own plot, and allowed him a small stock of corn from the common store. But even this change could not save the system of Company tillage. It was too repellent to attract settlers; it lacked the element of direct and personal supervision; and at the end of ten years there was only a handful of laborers, men, women, and children, operating under the plan. By that time, the experiment had made it clear that no corporation with its seat in London could successfully carry on planting in America by ill-requited workers sent out at its expense and managed by its agents three thousand miles away. So within a short time the development of planting in the lowlands of Virginia inevitably fell into the hands of individual landowners who secured estates by investment, purchase, or grant, as indicated above, and obtained by one process or another laborers—freemen, bond servants, or slaves—to cultivate their acres.
In the sphere of government, as well as economy, the experience of the Virginia Company was full of profit for the generations to come. Until near the end of its troubled
