oil, beaver cod, oak and walnut trees, pines, pitch and tar, sturgeon, caviare and sounds for isinglass.[1] A brief examination of this list of commodities will show that however important as subordinate productions they might become when the Colony was no longer struggling with all the drawbacks of being situated in a remote wilderness inhabited by hostile savages, it was too much to expect that any one or all of these articles taken together would furnish the subsistence which tobacco supplied. Some were not procurable in sufficient quantities, while others were too bulky to leave a profit after transportation to England, and for none were there opportunities for sale that would enlarge as the amount exported increased. Sassafras was most in demand, but care had to be taken even in the ease of sassafras not to overstock the English market, which could easily happen by the introduction of a considerable quantity.
In spite of the expense of removing the forest, the distance to market, the fluctuating value of the leaf, and the various revenue exactions to which it was subjected, the volume of tobacco produced in Virginia continued to increase. In 1619, twenty thousand pounds were exported;
- ↑ Virginia Commodities, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, pp. 384, 385. The valuations, of the different products of Virginia in 1621 will be found in Virginia Richly Valued, p. 51, Force’s: Historical Tracts, vol. III. A few may be given:—Iron, £10 a ton; silk-grass for cordage, 6d. a pound; hemp, 10s. to 22s. per 100 lbs.; flax, from 22s. to 30s. per 100 lbs.; cotton, 8d. per lb.; pitch, 5s. per 100 lbs.; tar, 5s. ditto; turpentine, 12s. ditto; salt, 30s. ditto; sarsaparilla, 5s. ditto; masts for shipping, 10s. to £3 apiece; pot ashes, 35s. per 100 lbs.; pipe staves, £4 per 1000; walnut oil, £12 a ton; honey, 2s. a gallon; wax, £4 per 100 lbs.; sumac, 7s. per 100 lbs. Certain valuations were also placed on the skins of the sable, otter, marten, wild-cat, fox, musk-rat, and beaver.
