profit, and this had the effect
which the numerous proclamations and instructions previously issued to
discourage its production had failed to bring about; there was now for
the first time in the history of the Colony a voluntary disposition
among the people to devote some attention to other commodities that had
hitherto aroused but little interest. There was a considerable extent
of land in Virginia which, from a previous course of tillage, had been
sufficiently deprived of its fertility to be left in an excellent
condition for the growth of wheat; it now occurred to many of the
planters that instead of allowing this land to revert to forest, or
instead of putting it down in a succession of crops of maize until
wholly exhausted, it would be advisable to sow it in English grain.
This course had already for several years been followed by Abraham
Piersey, who in one year alone, 1627, had two hundred acres in wheat
and as many in barley, the product of this area of soil being so great
that he was able to furnish food daily at his own charge to sixty
persons.[1] The authorities sought to confirm this disposition
to give less attention to tobacco. In 1628, there was issued a
proclamation that only so much of this commodity should be cultivated
as would not interfere with the production of grain;
- ↑ Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 885.
vol. V, No. 95; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1630, p. 221, Va. State Library. This extraordinary decline was said to have been due to the increase in the area under cultivation in tobacco in Barbadoes, Mevis, St. Christopher, and Bermudas.
