of the purposes which they served in the Colony. There the cow was in as much demand as the ox, and in consequence its price was as high. The great desire felt among the settlers that every means should be adopted to promote the increase of their live stock is shown in the passage of the law, that no female cattle were to be killed unless they had ceased to breed, or were stricken with a disease or infirmity that would inevitably end in death. The term “cattle” was here intended to apply to horses and sheep as well as to hogs, cows, and oxen.
The number of horses in the Colony at this time must have been very insignificant. Among the commodities which Charles the First, in 1627, urged the people of Virginia to produce were pitch and tar, but the Governor and Council replying in the following year to the royal communication, declared that the planters were unable to comply with the King’s commands because they lacked horses with which to transport the wood to sites where the kilns could be erected.[1] Sheep must have been still fewer in number, not only because the original stock was
- ↑ Randolph MSS., vol. III, p. 212.
