G. Melvin Herndon

“ For years the extension into the interior meant the expansion of tobacco production. Without tobacco the development of Virginia might have been retarded 200 years.
Tobacco was the life and soul of the colony; yet a primitive, but significant, form of diversified farming existed from the very beginning especially among the small farmers. Even with the development of the large plantations in the eighteenth century, there were quite a number of small landowners interspersed among the big planters in the Tidewater area, and they were most numerous in the Piedmont section. ”

“ Of the many different industries in Virginia today only five—food, textile, wearing apparel, chemical, and the manufacture of transportation equipment—employ more workers than the tobacco manufacturers. In 1953 a total of $40,000,000, in salaries and wages, was paid to production workers in the tobacco manufacturing industry in Virginia.
Although tobacco is no longer "king" in the Old Dominion, Virginia farmers produce enough of the "golden weed" each year to make one long cigarette that would stretch around the world fifty times. ”

“ After topping, the plant grew no higher, but the leaves grew larger and heavier and sprouts or suckers appeared at the junction of the stalk and the leaf stem. If allowed to grow they injured the marketable quality of tobacco by taking up plant food that would have gone into the leaves. These suckers were removed by pinching them off with the thumb and finger nails. Owing to his laziness or ignorance, the Indian did not top his tobacco, though he did keep the suckers out. Tobacco that has been topped will produce a second set of suckers once the first growth has been removed. ”

“ Tobacco penetrated the social, political, and economic life of the colony. Ownership of a large tobacco plantation could take one up the social ladder; many of the men responsible for the welfare of the colony were planters, and everything could be paid for in tobacco. In 1620 the indentured servants were paid for with tobacco, the young women sent to the colonists to become wives were purchased by paying their transportation charges with tobacco. ”

“ Planters frequently complained that their tobacco weighed much less in England that it did when it was inspected and weighed in the colony. There were reports that the stevedores were supplying certain patrons in England with tobacco of superior quality obtained by pilfering. An agent in England was certainly not apt to look after a planter's crop as though it were his own.
The gradual destruction of the fertility of the soil in the Tidewater country and the expansion of the tobacco industry into the back country made direct consignment less feasible. ”

“ Expansion and new developments over a period of years brought about a fantastic increase in tobacco production. When its production was confined to the Tidewater area, Virginia produced about 40,000,000 pounds annually; by 1800 this amount had doubled. Virginia remained the leading producer of tobacco in the United States until the War Between the States, when she was replaced by Kentucky, owing to the devastating effects of the war in the Old Dominion.
In the South the nature of the crop usually determines the number of acres that one person can cultivate successfully. ”

“ As the tobacco industry continued to expand into the interior, the need and the difficulty of regulating the quality of the leaf increased. Owing to ignorance or indifference, the frontier planters seldom resorted to methods of improving the quality of the crop. They traded their tobacco in small lots with the outport merchants, those from ports other than London, mostly Scottish, who sold the inferior tobacco to the countries in northern Europe. ”

“ While lax inspections caused a few buyers to visit the warehouses, the presence of these buyers led many of the planters to bring their tobacco to the warehouses most frequented by the buyers. As these buyers paid higher prices for the better tobacco, the ultimate result was the development of market towns and the disappearance of the tobacco note. Within a decade after the turn of the nineteenth century Richmond, Manchester, Petersburg, and Lynchburg had become major market towns. ”

“ The first appreciable decline came during the Revolution and this trend continued until the tobacco was almost completely abandoned in Tidewater in the nineteenth century. The rise in demand for foodstuffs during the war caused planters to shift from tobacco in increasing numbers. Many of them only reduced their tobacco crop at first, but later abandoned it completely. After the Revolution wheat was substituted for tobacco quite extensively, but owing to the expansion into the Piedmont, Virginia's post-war tobacco production soon equalled that of the prewar years. ”

“ With the establishment of a repository in the colony, trade became more regular, debtors less delinquent, and the problem of securing transportation for exports or imports was mitigated. Some of the factors were Englishmen sent over by the English firms, others were colonial merchants or planters who performed for the foreign firms on a commission basis. As the tobacco industry expanded beyond the limits of the navigable waters, it became the custom of the planters located near such streams to act as factors for their neighbors in the interior. ”

“ Around 1775 one man produced from 2,000 to 2,500 pounds of tobacco besides provisions. Thus it appears that during most of the Colonial period one man could cultivate one and a half to two acres of tobacco, plus provisions; but by the end of this period he had increased the productiveness of his own labor.
Management of the Crop
Cultivation practices during the early years at Jamestown appear to have been a combination of those used by the Indians and those of the farmers in England; modifications and new techniques [12] were developed as the settlers became experienced planters. ”

“ In 1755 a period of inflation was created when Virginia resorted to the printing press for currency. At the same time war operations hampered production and only about one-half of the usual annual crop was produced, and tobacco prices rose to twenty shillings per hundred weight. During the years of peace just prior to the American Revolution, tobacco averaged about three pence per pound and never fell below two pence. With the outbreak of hostilities the General Assembly prohibited the exportation of tobacco to the British Empire. ”

“ All during the colonial period tobacco was classified into two main varieties, Oronoco and sweet-scented. Oronoco had a large porous pointed leaf and was strong in taste. Sweet-scented was milder, the leaf was rounder and the fibers were finer. We are also told that sweet-scented grew mostly in the lower parts of Virginia, along the York and James rivers, and later on the Rappahannock and on the southside of the Potomac. Oronoco was generally planted up the Chesapeake Bay area and in the back settlements on the strong land along all the rivers. ”

“ A Negro slave on the Slade farm in Caswell County, North Carolina, fell asleep while fire-curing tobacco. Upon awakening, he quickly piled some dry wood on the dying embers; the sudden drying heat from the revived fires produced a profound effect—this particular barn of tobacco cured a bright yellow. This accident produced a curing technique that soon became known throughout the surrounding area in Virginia and North Carolina. This tobacco became known as "Bright-Tobacco", and this area the "Bright-Tobacco Belt". ”

“ Just prior to the American Revolution the tobacco industry began to expand rapidly south of the James River, especially to the south and west of Petersburg. One observer declared in 1769 that the Petersburg warehouses contained more tobacco than all the rest of the warehouses on the James or the York River. It was estimated that 20,000 hogsheads were being produced annually in that region alone. A considerable amount of tobacco was also being grown in the lower region of the Valley of Virginia. ”

“ If the tobacco is not topped, only three or four suckers will appear, and these grow in the very top of the plant. During the course of the growing season the colonial planter had two sets of suckers to remove, from the junction of each leaf and from the bottom to the top of the plant, whereas the Indian had only a total of three or four per plant. ”

“ In 1680, to accelerate the growth of towns, the General Assembly had passed an act providing that fifty acres of land be laid out for towns at convenient landings and that storehouses be built in each, at which all goods imported had to be landed and all exports stored while awaiting transportation. ”

“ By the late 1630's, attempts to reduce the amount of tobacco grown in the colony, by limiting the number of plants each person could plant, had caused many planters to leave their plantations in search of virgin soil in which more tobacco per plant could be grown. They frequently built temporary dwellings, as they expected to move on as soon as the land under cultivation showed signs of exhaustion. ”

“ Only a small number of acres of tobacco can be cultivated properly owing to its high value of yield per acre and the careful supervision required. The production of tobacco per acre does not appear to have changed very much in the long period from about 1650 to 1800, when 1,000 pounds per acre was considered a good yield. However, the amount that one man could produce increased during this period as the planters became more experienced and the plow and other implements came to be used more extensively. ”

“ By 1800, owing to the fact that both the planters and buyers had become more concerned about the quality of tobacco, rolling tobacco in hogsheads began to decline sharply, although fifty years later a rare roller might still be seen on his way to market. The rivers and canals provided the most typical means of transportation. Wagons were used primarily as feeders to and from [25] inland waters. The Potomac, Rappahannock, and York rivers were valuable colonial arteries, but played a less significant role after the Piedmont became the major producing area. ”

“ While struggling with the problems involved in producing an entirely new crop about which they knew little or nothing, the colonists also had to feed themselves, deal with their racial problems, and maintain a stable local government as they continually expanded in a limitless wilderness. ”

“ The danger from pirates and frequent wars caused the English to inaugurate the convoy system, which also helped improve the market conditions. However, trading directly with the casual merchants was still common after 1625, and a few still operated as late as 1700.
The consignment system developed along with the system of casual trading, and it also operated upon the practice of the ships collecting cargo from the various plantations. Importation was based on the same idea: the ship which gathered the planters' tobacco usually brought goods from abroad. ”

“ Frequent overproduction and the numerous wars during the eighteenth century seem to have caused more violent price fluctuations than those of the previous century. Although the American colonies did not participate in all of the wars involving England, all of them had their effects upon the colonies. ”

“ All during the seventeenth century expansion tended to extend in a northerly direction within the Tidewater region, but in the eighteenth century the movement was to the west in search of virgin soil. Planters began moving beyond the Fall Line soon after the turn of the century. Robert Carter of Nomini Hall patented over 900 acres of land above the Falls in 1707. It is generally agreed that the commercial production of tobacco began to expand beyond the Fall Line about 1720. ”

“ Spreading north the frontiersmen had reached the Rappahannock and the Potomac by 1650, and settlers began moving into Lancaster County. In 1653 the first settlers established themselves in what is now King William County. Just before the end of the seventeenth century the tobacco industry had expanded into the lowlands all along the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers below the Fall Line. In 1689 the York River area produced the largest quantity of tobacco, the Rappahannock River area was second, the Upper James third, and the Accomac Peninsula last. ”

“ And when the herb is grown out of the earth, inasmuch as every seed will have put up his sprout and stalk, and that the small thready roots are entangled the one within the other, you must with a great knife make a composs within the earth in the places about this plot where they grow and take up the earth and all together, and cast them into a bucket full of water, to the end that the earth may be separated, and the small and tender impes swim about the water ”

“ However, it appears that inspection warehouses were not permitted above the Fall Line until after the Revolution.
In 1730 the most comprehensive inspection bill ever introduced, passed the General Assembly. The common knowledge that the past and present inspection laws had failed to prevent the importation of unmarketable tobacco, plus a long depression, had changed the attitude of many of the influential planters and merchants. ”

“ In 1633 the General Assembly provided that all tobacco had to be brought to one of the five warehouses—to be erected in specified localities—to be stored until sold. The planters objected immediately and petitioned the House of Burgesses to allow ships to come into every county, "where they will find at every man's house a store convenient [23] enough for theire ladinge, we beinge all seated by the Riverside." ”

“ For her birth, growth, and colonial leadership, Virginia pays her respect to John Rolfe and the other brave settlers at Jamestown.
Tobacco is still a vital factor in Virginia's economy. Of approximately 2,000,000 acres of cropland (pastureland excluded) in 1949, 115,400 were planted in tobacco which produced 124,904,000 pounds valued at $55,120,800 or twenty-three percent of the total value of all agricultural crops. Of the four largest agricultural products—poultry, tobacco, meat animals, and milk—tobacco ranked second only to poultry in terms of income in 1955. ”