Lyman Carrier

“ Each succeeding crop was new wealth, something that had not existed before. Gradually, harvest after harvest, the colonists were able to add to their possessions additional tools and equipment.
He was a shiftless man indeed who could not provide ample food for his own needs. The history of Virginia during colonial times was intimately connected with the tobacco crop. The general welfare of the people rose and fell with the value placed on the leaf in England. ”

“ Maize became an export commodity to the New England and West Indian colonies when the price for tobacco fell below the cost of transportation to Europe. Maize aided the colonists in the production of valuable livestock products. This crop has done more to promote the wealth and welfare of this country than all the natural resources, water-power, and forests put together. ”

“ To have and to hold a parcel of land and to enjoy the fruits of one's own labors has been a compelling force in changing a wilderness into a mighty nation. That force had its inception in the infant colony at Jamestown.
A Change in Policy
The two years of failure to produce crops was convincing evidence that English methods of farming were not suited to Virginia conditions. The colonists were ready to try something else. They turned to the Indians to learn the secret of their successful farming operations. ”

“ While silk brought fabulous prices on the world's market there were numerous reasons why its culture never succeeded in America. The handling of the creeping, crawling, ill-smelling worms was objectionable to anyone not accustomed from childhood to the task. Old people and young girls who were the ones employed in rearing silkworms in the Orient received the equivalent of a few cents a day for their labor. ”

“ At the time of the discovery of America, England and most of the nations of Europe were controlled by the feudal system. The arable land was owned in large estates or manors by feudal barons, the actual labor on the farms being performed by serfs. These farm laborers belonged to the land and were exchanged with it when there was a change in ownership of the real estate. Farming was looked upon as necessary to existence, but not as a business enterprise. Since trade and transportation in farm products were extremely limited, consumption took place near the fields of production. ”

“ It was with eyes focused on future trade that the businessmen who composed the London Company contributed the huge sums that were required to finance the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. Agriculture was not of prime importance. At that time England was self-sufficient so far as the production of grains and livestock was concerned. Ordinary farm products would not pay the cost of transportation across the ocean. Of course, it was expected that the colonists would eventually produce their own food stuffs ”

“ European agriculture reached a high degree of efficiency two thousand years ago in the scrub-forest region around the Mediterranean Sea. To the Greeks that part of the world alone was considered fit for habitation by human beings. Farming by the Romans was regarded as a highly respectable and honorable occupation. Some of their most learned scholars wrote books on husbandry. ”

“ Tobacco culture in America was a highly profitable enterprise for England. The colonists produced and sold the raw product. Very little tobacco is used in the raw state. Before tobacco is ready for the market it must be processed into the various forms demanded by the trade. It was estimated that one man engaged in tobacco growing in Virginia kept three Englishmen employed, that is, sailors engaged in transportation, processors and tradesmen. ”

“ Finding the remains of old tobacco rows out in dense woods is not an uncommon experience. This exhaustion of tobacco lands had a beneficial influence on the agricultural development of Virginia. By the time the fields were abandoned, most of the stumps had decayed and the soil could be prepared for seeding to other crops with plow and harrows. ”

“ The stumps with their interlocking root systems have to be removed. It takes many years for hardwood stumps to rot to a condition that they may be easily destroyed. Although the trees on Jamestown Island were large, they could be cut, and those with straight grained boles rived into clapboards, or the logs rolled into piles and burned for their ashes, a product that was in demand in England for use in the manufacture of soap.
The soil on the Island may not have been very fertile. The fact that the Indians had never cleared any of the land indicates they did not consider it of the best quality. ”

“ In summer, at Jamestown, they obtained most of their living in the numerous fresh-water swamps. Tuckahoe, a flag-like swamp plant, with an enormous root system, was their favorite hot weather forage. The roots of tuckahoe, often as large as a man's arm, contain a crystalline acid that burns the mouth of a human being like fire. After a few trials, hogs seem to relish it. While tuckahoe is not a fattening feed, hogs eating it make satisfactory gains in weight. ”

“ Newly cleared forests left the soil full of stumps and roots. The wooden plows of those days were useless on these newly cleared lands. Preparation of the soil, for tobacco or maize, could be accomplished with a hand hoe or shovel. These plants required space in which to develop their full growth. A tobacco plant could be set or a hill of corn planted wherever a little loose dirt could be found. Some English grains were seeded in the cleared land near Hampton and Newport News but these old fields, abandoned by the Indians, were also near to exhaustion. ”

“ But, here in America with its boundless acres, that great boon seemed within their reach. When allotments of land were finally made to individuals it was found advantageous for the owner to live on his farm, rather than to operate it from a remote village. Freedom, independence, and the importance of the individual, which are characteristics of the American farmers, came into existence. ”

“ In 1627, Abraham Piersey had 200 acres each in wheat and [Pg 28] barley. From these crops he was able to furnish food daily to sixty persons. How much of this seeding was on land that had been abandoned for tobacco, or was old Indian fields, is not stated. When DeVries visited Virginia in 1643, he found the planters putting down, in English grain, lands which had been exhausted by successive crops of tobacco. The General Assembly had ruled in 1639, that corn (probably wheat and maize) could be exported whenever the price fell below twelve shillings a bushel. ”

“ In 1682, bounties were offered: "For every peck of flax seeds, four and twentie pounds of tobacco, and for every peck of hemp seed twenty pounds of tobacco." Bounties were also offered for hemp and flax woven into cloth. It was also ordered that every tithable person should produce one pound of dressed hemp and one pound of dressed flax or two pounds of either annually. From that time on considerable hemp and flax were raised in Virginia, but most of the crop was used at home. Linen cloth was highly prized. There was also a demand for cordage made of hemp fibers for ships. ”

“ Outstanding were the accomplishments of this taskmaster, Governor Dale, in one year, with men many of whom were unaccustomed to manual labor. While some were engaged in fence building and the construction of houses, others were employed in getting out clapboards. Still others were gathering pitch and tar from the pine trees and burning logs to make soap-ashes. The London Company had incurred heavy expense in the settlement and was asking for something in return. ”

“ Some planters marked their animals by ear-cuts, and then could claim an entire drove, if they had a number of their branded hogs in it.
Cattle
Neat animals were kept near Jamestown in the early years, but they, like the swine, had to gather their own living. A few were trained for draft purposes. In new grounds where stumps and roots prevail, oxen are more useful than horses. They do [Pg 30] not get in a panic when obstacles interfere. Then too, they can be slaughtered for beef when they become too old for work. During the period under study, cattle, in Virginia, often brought good prices. ”

“ The planters of [Pg 22] each colony were willing for those of the other to stop planting, or to destroy as much tobacco as they pleased; but looking to their own selfish interests they would increase rather than decrease their crop. The Virginia General Assembly, in 1666, prohibited all culture of tobacco but the Maryland authorities complained that the law was ignored by the Virginia planters.
The Virginia colonists developed a keen rivalry among themselves in efforts to improve the quality of the leaf grown. ”

“ There is very little justification for including silk culture as an enterprise in the agricultural history of the Jamestown Colony. It was one product that was usually placed first in recommendations of the authorities who sponsored the settlement of Virginia. ”

“ It was the belief of the authorities in the London Company that the colonists would all live in small communities for mutual protection and perform their tillage operations, if any, outside the settlement. ”

“ World commerce had already become well stabilized among friendly nations making it difficult for outside businessmen to share in these established commitments. So England was soon to direct her attentions toward America. ”

“ Likewise the Normans in the eleventh century brought over their methods of tillage. Owing to the close proximity to France, Flanders and Holland, agricultural innovations in those countries were not long in gaining attention and trial by the British farmers. The long hours of sunlight during short summers, with the opposite conditions prevailing in the winters, have influenced the development of plant species in all northern latitudes. Such seasonal conditions have also made necessary a distinct type of farming. Many crops of the Mediterranean region do not survive in north European countries. ”

“ The men of the first expedition were not farmers and took little interest in farming. A good many came, hoping to share in riches, that their imagination had created. Fantastic tales about the Americas had been circulated in Europe during the century following their discovery. ”

“ Farming practices in England before the eighteenth century were largely adaptations from other European countries. The Romans, about the beginning of the Christian era, took their husbandry to the British Isles. ”

“ For the transporting of graine for trade in great quantities, it is to be intended the voyage is seldom long, but from neighbor to neighbor, and therefore commonly they make close decks in the ships to receive the graine, faire and even boorded, yet if such decks be matted and lined both under and on each side, it is much the better, and this matting would be strong and thinne ”

“ This corn was planted near what is now Hampton where Strachey says, "so much ground is there cleared and open; enough with little labour alreddy prepared to receive corne or make viniards of two or three thowsand acres." With corn planting completed, two palisaded forts were built for the protection of a few men left to care for the crops. They made another planting across Chesapeake Bay on the Virginia Cape. They had learned the hard way that clearing the heavily timbered land at Jamestown was hopeless for [Pg 14] immediate results. ”

“ In keeping with the improved status of the social and economic life of England, in the latter years of the sixteenth century, came a desire for finer and more lustrous fabrics in their articles of dress. ”

“ It was found that these depleted fields were still capable of producing satisfactory crops of grain. Many of the colonists who were not financially able to clear new grounds could often buy or rent these abandoned fields for a nominal price.
Crops Other Than Tobacco
While tobacco played a very important part in building a prosperous colony at Jamestown, there were several other staples that also contributed to this result. Of prime importance should be rated maize or Indian Corn. Maize saved the colony from starvation on several occasions. ”

“ It is now thought that these areas were corn fields in which the seeding was made in continuous rows instead of hills. A French artist in Florida in 1564 pictured the Indians seeding their crops in rows.
After a few years of failure in their attempts to grow American crops, the English colonists adopted the Indian method of seeding, but usually neglected the weeding, and were subjected to ridicule for their shiftlessness by the painstaking squaws. In using work-animals for cultivating corn, it was found advantageous to destroy the weeds by stirring the ground in the intervening spaces. ”

“ Until Governor Dale constructed his miles of picket fences there was nothing to keep the animals from wandering up into the highlands where the colonists did not dare to venture. In spite of the handicaps all classes of domestic animals increased in numbers when not slaughtered for food. ”