. The story of agriculture in the United States. and lot of twelve acresfree of rent for a year, besides tools and live-stock. Itwas a number of years before those who had been work-ing for the Company were given complete freedom andcould get farms for themselves. In 1612, John Rolfe, who afterward married Poco-hontas, began the cultivation of tobacco. A hundredyears earlier, tobacco had been taken from the WestIndies to Spain; and its use had extended from onecountry to another in Europe. There was great demandfor it, and the price was high. It was soon found to bea very valuable crop, so the
. The story of agriculture in the United States. and lot of twelve acresfree of rent for a year, besides tools and live-stock. Itwas a number of years before those who had been work-ing for the Company were given complete freedom andcould get farms for themselves. In 1612, John Rolfe, who afterward married Poco-hontas, began the cultivation of tobacco. A hundredyears earlier, tobacco had been taken from the WestIndies to Spain; and its use had extended from onecountry to another in Europe. There was great demandfor it, and the price was high. It was soon found to bea very valuable crop, so the Virginia settlers planted it, 16 AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES to the neglect of grains and vegetables. To its cultiva-tion they gave up their fields, their gardens, and eventhe streets of Jamestown. This, though very unwise,was quite natural, because, as John Smith said to theofficers of the Company in England, a farmer could getsix times as much profit from the same amount of landand labor by raising tobacco as he could by raising Tobacco Field As a result, there was actually danger that the peoplewould not raise enough corn for the necessary supply offood. Consequently, Governor Dale made a rule thatno one should plant tobacco until he had sowed twoacres of grain. Later, there was a law that each settlermust keep in store enough grain for food through thewinter. When the Indians were troublesome, andespecially after the great massacre of 1622, the settlerswere loath to plant corn because the fields made goodambushes for the red men. A law was then made requir-ing each parish or group of farms to support a pubhcgranary, to which every person over eighteen years ofage must contribute a bushel of grain yearly. THE FIRST FARMERS OF VIRGINIA 17 When all the farmers in Virginia were raising as muchtobacco as they possibly could, the result was that theprice fell from three shillings a pound at the beginning,to one penny — only one thirty-sixth as much. Thisled to a n
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
