AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT, 1685-1700

The freight rates fluctuated with circumstances. In 1630, there was a sharp complaint on the part of the planters that they were compelled to pay twelve pounds sterling a ton, which at this period consisted of four hogs-heads, this extortionate charge continuing until the General Assembly interposed, in the session of 1639-40, with the enactment that all masters of vessels who advanced the freight rate beyond six pounds were to be fined in such an amount as the Governor and Council should consider advisable.¹ Thirty years later these masters were sometimes instructed by the owners of their craft to grant transportation at seven pounds sterling a ton; if the ship in making the voyage to England was to pass by the West Indies, there was an additional charge of twenty shillings.² In a bill of lading which Robert Bauldry received in 1675,

showing the transfer of ten hogsheads to England, the freight rate was seven pounds sterling. In some instances, this was reduced to six pounds ten shillings,¹ and in others still to five pounds five shillings.² It was the opinion of masters of vessels ten years afterwards that a freight rate of six pounds sterling a ton left no margin for profit.³ Whenever shipping was scarce, the charges advanced in a notable degree; in 1690, Byrd, who had two hundred hogsheads still on hand, was compelled to accept an offer of Captain Tatnall to convey his tobacco to England for fourteen pounds sterling a ton. Under some circumstances at this time, as much as sixteen pounds sterling was asked by masters and paid by planters, who were glad to secure transportation even on these terms. These advanced rates were due to the fact that England was now involved in a war that diverted a large amount of shipping from Virginia.⁴ In the following year the number of vessels in the waters of the Colony were so few, that the masters who arrived demanded from seventeen to eighteen pounds sterling in freight to the ton. The most careful persons were willing to pay as much as fifteen pounds.⁵ In order to avoid the high rates for conveyance in English ships, some of the planters wrote to New England to obtain cheaper bottoms; in 1690, Byrd is found in correspondence with Mr. Hutchinson for the purpose of engaging in the Northern Colonies several vessels, each of which should carry about ninety tons, and he declared himself ready to pay ten pounds sterling a ton.⁶ The heavy charges were largely to be attributed

to the length of time a ship was compelled to remain in Virginia while occupied in collecting a cargo; it was asserted that these charges were double what they would have been if the vessel could have taken in its load of tobacco promptly instead of being compelled to pass from landing to landing, often very remote from each other, thus losing three or four months, during which it was necessary to provide the sailors with food and to remunerate them in wages.¹ The amount of freight was not due until the cargo was delivered in England or wherever it was consigned.¹

A large portion of the tobacco exported from the Colony at this time was shipped in a loose mass. So strong was the temptation to transport it in this shape, that even after it had been placed on board in hogsheads, the hogs-heads were frequently broken open when the vessel had gotten under way, and the cargo rearranged.² One explanation of this course of action in many cases was that tobacco in bulk could be smuggled very easily into the kingdom, which was done by running the ships into the smaller ports where the revenue laws were laxly enforced, or into the mouths of creeks or lonely bays and estuaries. Having once found access to land, it was borne on pack-horses to the interior towns, where it was sold from door to door at much cheaper rates than the merchants in London could afford to retail it. Even when the leaf shipped in bulk was conveyed directly to ports where the custom laws were strictly carried out, an important part

of it escaped the regular charges. Women and children came on board in a quiet way, bought the tobacco in bundles, and secretly bore it off to the shore.¹ The sailors also disposed of the leaves in the same furtive manner. When the cargo was afterwards weighed in the custom-house, it was found to be smaller in amount than the ship papers called for, and the discrepancy was generally explained on the ground that the commodity had shrunk in the course of the voyage, or that a portion of it had been thrown into the sea to save the remainder. Transported in bulk, it was necessarily subject to a great many casualties from which it was exempt when packed in hogs-heads, such as spontaneous combustion, mowheat, and the depreciation resulting from the entrance of sea water through the hatchways in heavy storms. There was always a decline in the quality of such tobacco, even when the voyage was fair and prosperous. Its color faded and the sweetness of its scent was sensibly diminished.

Grave as was the loss to the royal revenue from the volume of leaf in bulk escaping the officers of the customs, the loss to the treasury of the colonial government was still, more serious, the income of the latter being curtailed, because tobacco in this shape was exported in only too many instances without the owners having paid the usual charges to the collectors, the packages or bundles being smuggled on board as the vessels passed from plantation to plantation. An amount which would require a dozen ships to convey it, if exported in hogsheads, needed only ten when it was in bulk, and the result of this was that the Colony was deprived of port dues upon one vessel in every six. The number of crews to be supplied with

meal, flour; meat, and vegetables was also lessened to that extent. A ship in which a cargo of loose tobacco was stored was more heavily laden than if it had only hogsheads on board, because the bundles of leaves could be deposited in the cantlings and hollows, where it was impossible to place even casks of the smallest size. A vessel that would hold five hundred hogsheads could transport sixty thousand pounds in bulk.

The damage inflicted upon the planter was more serious than the injury which fell upon the colonial government in these shipments of the leaf in its loose state. The effect of the smaller expense of transportation in bulk was to enable the foreign importer to dispose of it at a lower rate than the same commodity that had come to him in hogsheads, and this necessarily brought the latter down in spite of the heavier charges which it had been required to bear. Loose tobacco did not have to undergo the delay entailed by the process of assorting and packing, and it, therefore, reached England at an earlier date and forestalled the arrival of the leaf in cask, which suffered from the largeness of the supply already on hand. The English market for tobacco in hogsheads was also injured by the fact that the commodity in its loose state could be hawked about the streets in small quantities and sold very cheaply, even when it had borne all the charges in the form of freight and custom.

The damage inflicted upon their interests by the shipments in bulk had been long recognized by the planters, and many had on a number of occasions protested against it. In 1687, for instance, James the Second was earnestly petitioned to prohibit its continuance and he consented,¹

but in the conflicts of the time no steps were taken by the Assembly to carry out his command. Five years later, when the evil complained of had become more intolerable, Byrd addressed his well-known treatise on bulk tobacco to the English authorities, and his recommendations were marked by a thorough understanding of every aspect of the question under discussion.¹ In his opinion, it was advisable to pass a law which would impose a penalty of one thousand pounds upon all who exported in bulk, and furthermore, a bond in the same amount should be required of the commander of every vessel engaged in the transportation of Virginian products, and also a specific statement of all his consignments. Every bill of lading should be sworn to, and the oath, with the signature of the collector attached, embodied in it. Three contents should be drawn up, the first to be delivered to the master to enter his ship by when he arrived in the mother country; the second to be forwarded to the Commissioners of the English Customs, and the third to be retained by the collector in Virginia. Finally, the shipmaster should return, before the expiration of twelve months, a certificate showing that he had been discharged by the Commissioners of Customs in England.

The stringency of these propositions is an evidence of the warm opposition which the habit of shipping in bulk had aroused among a large number of the colonists. No man who produced tobacco on a considerable scale was in favor of it, and of this class, Colonel Byrd was a very conspicuous representative; he was not only a cultivator of the ground but also a merchant and trader, and in all of these characters appreciated the force of every influence that was likely to lower the value of the principal commodity which he dealt in. The habit must have found

its chief supporters among those who were not interested in planting, and who were anxious to take advantage of every means that would enable them to transport their tobacco to the English market at the earliest opportunity after the process of curing was finished, and at the lowest freight rates which could be secured. Such men were doubtless, in most cases, factors of English merchants who were seeking to acquire the largest profit on their purchases.

To obtain an accurate notion as to the quantity of leaf which was shipped from Virginia each year in the closing decade of the century, it is necessary only to examine the returns of the collectors for the different districts established when a duty of two shillings was imposed on every hogshead and every five hundred pounds in bulk exported from the Colony. In 1689, there were eight of these districts, and the whole amount of tax derived from this source was three thousand six hundred and thirty-one pounds sterling. It is interesting to note that in this year the county of York produced the largest quantity of tobacco; Rappahannock followed next, but at a very considerable interval; Upper James was the third in the list, and Accomac the last. Seven years afterwards, the tax collected did not exceed three thousand pounds, but in the meantime a law had been passed providing that the size of a hogshead might be increased one-fifth, the result of which was to diminish the volume of revenue from this source very materially. So far as the amount reaching the colonial treasury was concerned, it was still further curtailed by the fact that ten per cent of it was paid over to the masters of the ships to induce them to return an accurate statement as to their cargoes; an additional ten per cent was always allowed to the collectors, and seven and a half per cent to the auditors.¹

The average price of the leaf in the closing years of the seventeenth century did not vary materially from the average price during the period immediately preceding 1688. In 1695, Samuel Smith of Elizabeth City entered suit upon his account against Philip Johnson in the sum of ten pounds sterling, or sixteen hundred pounds of sweet-scented tobacco. This equivalent would indicate that the latter was now worth about a penny and a half a pound. A suit was also brought by the same person against John Collsell for three pounds eight shillings and nine pence, or five hundred and fifty pounds of the same variety of the plant, which would represent the same salable value.¹ On the other hand, there is recorded in this year the transfer in Elizabeth City County of a large quantity of this commodity in return for five shillings a hundred pounds.² Ten years previously, Colonel Fitzhugh had disposed of one hundred and fifty casks at the rate of five pounds sterling a cask, or seven hundred and fifty pounds sterling for the whole amount of tobacco, deductions having been made for every kind of charge. The average weight of the hogsheads in this instance probably did not exceed six hundred pounds, causing the price of each pound of their contents to be equal to about two pennies.³

There were as many reasons to induce the planters to complain of the prices of tobacco in the latter as in the early part of the seventeenth century. Both Fitzhugh and Byrd refer very frequently to the rapid changes in its value. Byrd writing to a kinsman in England in 1688,

declared that the only crop of Virginia was “stinking tobacco,” and that it was not “worth a farthing.” A few years before, he had expressed regret that the Colony did not produce a crop upon which the firmest reliance could be placed as a source of income.¹ The language of Fitzhugh in 1695 was almost precisely similar. “I heartily wish,” be wrote to John Cooper in London, “that tobacco was such a commodity that we might certainly depend to raise money on the same.”²

How enormous had grown the volume of tobacco imported into England may be discovered from the official statement issued in 1689, which had application to the previous three years. The quantity recorded for London for the year the report was published was 11,646,600 pounds, and for the other English ports 3,882,200 pounds.³ In the light of these figures, the low price of the commodity is very intelligible. It seems entirely natural that the people of Virginia should have looked forward with much apprehension to the effect of the steady enlargement of the area cultivated in the plant in the different American colonies; there was apparently but one result possible, a still greater decline in its value. The only consolation which they could bring forward to modify the character of the outlook was that for fifty or sixty years, practically the whole history of Virginia, there had been a fear, now growing, now declining, that the increase in the amount of tobacco produced, following from the steady growth in population, would soon precipitate the total ruin of the community by rendering its staple a drug in the

market, and yet this condition, which always seemed at hand and at times appeared actually to have arrived, had been staved off, and arguing from experience in the past would yet be in the future.¹

There was never a prolonged disposition on the part of the people of the Colony to abandon for any length of time the culture of the plant and direct their attention to other products. This disinclination was as notable in the closing as in the early part of the century. The fact that all forms of public dues, such as quit-rents, levies, and tithes were still paid in tobacco had a strong tendency to give to this commodity the first importance in the esteem of the population of that age.² Jones, writing many years later, declared that in his own recollection, several English farmers had settled in Virginia and attempted to continue there the cultivation of the crops to which they had been accustomed in their native country. They had failed, in his opinion, because they would not make proper allowance for a difference in soil, climate, and seasons. The expense and labor imposed upon them in destroying the forest as well as in erecting barns and dwelling-houses had been so discouraging, that by the time that their plantations had been put in condition for grain, they were compelled to turn their attention to tobacco, to ensure the income of which they now stood in such urgent need.³ There is no reason to doubt that precisely the same influences were at work in the last years of the seventeenth century to dishearten every colonist who undertook to confine himself to the cereals. There are, however, indications

that wheat, oats, and barley were grown on many estates devoted chiefly to the staple crop of the country. A considerable abundance of these grains was found at this time in Virginia. It is probable that there were now few of the larger plantations which did not have a number of acres in wheat, the product of which was to be converted to family use. One clause of the agreement, under the terms of which Reeves leased to William Arrington a part of his land in Henrico County, a transaction already referred to, was that Arrington should assist in ploughing in one or two bushels of this cereal.¹ Such a contract was not uncommon. The poorest class of planters were discouraged from putting down their soil in wheat to any extent by the fact that a fence had to be erected to enclose every field to prevent the depredations of live stock, a step entailing a draught upon their resources which they were unwilling to make.² In spite of the numerous obstacles in the way of the culture of this grain in the Colony, the amount produced was insufficient in many years, if not in every year, to furnish a considerable quantity for outside markets. That it was the habit of some persons to make shipments of wheat abroad is shown in the occasional laws prohibiting the exportation of the cereals in general on the ground that the supply in Virginia had been cut short by a recent storm or drought.³ The countries to which this product was sent at this time were New England, Madeira, Barbadoes, and the Leeward

Islands.¹ It was not unusual for a vessel to take on a load of wheat in the Colony, sail to Madeira, where it was exchanged for wine, and return by way of the West Indies, where the wine was exchanged, in part at least, for sugar, rum, and slaves.² The ship commanded by Captain Jackson of Piscataqua, which arrived in the Rappahannock in 1683, came for a cargo of this grain.³ From the terms of the agreement entered into by Fitzhugh and Jackson with reference to certain slaves to be imported by the latter, it would be inferred that this New England vessel was at the time on a voyage to the West Indies, where negroes were easily procurable.

The land in which wheat was sown was put into a condition to receive the seeds by means of the plough, the use of this instrument for breaking up the soil being now more general than it was in 1649, when it was stated that not more than one hundred and fifty ploughs were at work in the Colony. This implement would have been employed still more frequently but for the shortness of the time in which a field was exhausted by cultivation; in the case of low grounds, this condition was reached in eight years, and in the case of lands less favorably situated, in three. It was just as true of this period as of all preceding it, that the method of clearing away the forest by which the surface was left covered with stumps, was the most serious impediment to the general use of the plough. When the stumps had rotted in the ground, the latter had been abandoned as too poor for further cultivation.⁴ It does not appear to have been the custom to fallow the land which was to be sown in wheat; one

passage through the soil was considered to be sufficient.¹ No material change had taken place in the manufacture of the plough beyond the introduction of the mould-board, an invention of the Dutch. There were the share, the device, and the colter. The references in the inventories to plough irons are numerous, showing that iron entered largely into the construction of this implement. In one instance they were valued at twelve shillings, representing about fifteen dollars in modern currency.² The sizes of the ploughs differed materially.³ Oxen were the animals most commonly employed in their use, the only gear necessary being chains, yokes, rings, and hooks.⁴ The ploughs found in the Colony were of both domestic and English manufacture; among the articles included in the inventory of Ralph Graves of York County was a Virginian plough valued at ten shillings, and an English plough valued at one pound sterling, a difference of ten shillings, which is to be accounted for either by the superior material and finer workmanship of the English implement or its more recent manufacture.⁵ The number of ploughs in the possession of a planter rarely exceeded two; in a majority of cases it did not rise above one.⁶ In the appraisement of the merchandise in the store of Francis Eppes of Henrico, there are references to only two shares and colters, although this inventory includes a great variety and quantity

of goods.¹ The enumeration of the contents of many similar establishments in the Colony in this age shows no entry of a plough or any of its component parts.

When wheat was sown over a small area, it was perhaps the common plan to prepare the land for its culture with the hoe.² There were several kinds of this implement, the hilling, the weeding, and the grubbing. According to another classification, the broad and narrow were distinguished. The greater number were probably imported. In 1690, Fitzhugh is found sending instructions to his merchant in London to consign to him so many hoes, and his example was doubtless followed by others.³ There are, however, in the inventories, many references to the “Virginia hoe,” that is, the hoe manufactured in the Colony, which must have been skilfully fashioned if an inference can be drawn from its valuation, the average price ranging from nineteen pence to two shillings.⁴ Spades were also used to a small extent, perhaps, in the preparation of the soil for wheat; they were sometimes made of steel, and were appraised as high as thirty pence.⁵ The seed of wheat appear to have been

turned under by means of the harrow, the teeth of which were frequently of iron. The implement in use in Virginia in the seventeenth century was the same as that of the English farmers, which consisted in general of five parallel bars of wood, two yards in length, which were kept firmly in position by cross-pieces. In these the teeth were inserted. The use of the weeding harrow was probably confined to the maize and tobacco fields.¹

The testimony is very favorable regarding the productiveness of the lands in Virginia which at this time were put down in wheat, a condition which was to be expected, as the culture of tobacco has always been found to be the most admirable preparation for the culture of this cereal. Clayton declares that the yield ranged from fifteen to thirty for every bushel that was sown, while in England it did not exceed eight.² Jones, writing in the early part of the eighteenth century, estimated the return in the proportion of sixty, and in some cases even as high as eighty bushels.³ In 1773, when nearly one hundred years had passed since Clayton’s visit to the Colony, the ratio of increase on the lowlands was placed at twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five bushels, and on the highlands at eight, ten, and fifteen.⁴

In harvesting wheat, both the reap-hook and the sickle were used, the number in the possession of individual planters being often very notable. In the inventory of the Richards personal estate, there were thirty of the former

implements. Five reap-hooks and one sickle were among the articles bequeathed in the will of Dr. Francis Haddon in 1674. The personalty of Captain William Marshall included twelve sickles, and that of John Thomas, eleven sickles and reap-hooks.¹ The cradle was employed as early as the sixteenth century, but only in cutting barley and oats. Wheat was reaped throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.²

In describing wheat culture in Virginia about the middle of the century, Williams states incidentally that the grain could be trodden out without any difficulty by means of oxen, from which it is to be inferred that this was a more popular method than the flail.³ Towards the end of the century, the sieve was employed to remove the chaff, this implement being imported not only from Old

but also from New England. In August, 1690, Byrd requested Mr. Hutchinson of Boston to send him several to be used on his own plantation.¹ The chaff and straw were often stored in the tobacco houses.²

The Act requiring a certain number of acres to be cultivated in Indian corn and wheat still remained on the statute book, and there is unmistakable evidence that the law was strictly enforced.³ The methods of preparing the soil for maize did not differ essentially from those which have been noted in the case of wheat, the plough, the hoe, and the spade being used indiscriminately for this purpose. The grains of Indian corn were probably removed from the husk at this time not entirely by the naked hand.⁴ It commanded ten shillings a barrel, but there were local instances of its sale at six shillings, its condition in these cases being perhaps inferior.⁵

There were still intermittent efforts to stimulate the production of other commodities. In 1691, every tithable person in the Colony was required to make or cause to be made one pound of dressed flax and one pound of dressed hemp, or two pounds of either.⁶ Andros, who was appointed to the administration of affairs in 1692, was very much interested in cotton, and a considerable area was planted in it under the influence of his encouragement, which was prompted by a desire to establish the manufacture of cloth in Virginia.⁷ The cultivation of cotton,

which began during his term on a scale of some importance, was continued in increasing proportions down to the administration of Spotswood, but it could never have reached a high stage of development.¹ In modern times, a considerable amount is grown in a number of the southern counties of the State, but in that part of the Colony where Andros sought to promote its culture, only a few patches on each plantation have been worked, and these in the private gardens. Neither the soil nor the climate in the seventeenth century was adapted to the plant in its highest form, although the product was of sufficient excellence to excite the favorable comment of competent judges. Rice to a large extent remained unregarded, as there was nobody who understood the proper method of husking and cleaning it; whatever amount of this grain was raised, which must have been small, was consumed on the plantation where it was produced, for there was no market for its general sale.²

No use at this time seems to have been made of silk-grass. Silk culture had fallen into abeyance, if any inference is to be drawn from the absence of statutory allusions to it in the closing years of the century. It was supposed at one time that there were several vegetables that gave indications of degeneration in the climate of Virginia; among these was the red-top turnip,

which was thought to be converted by transportation into rape. This was subsequently discovered to be a mistake. It was found that if after having been stored away during the whole of the winter, the top were cut off and planted alone, it would yield a seed from which a very fine species of turnip could be produced.¹ Jones at a later date declared that so far as his own observation extended, the only vegetable in Virginia which had declined since its removal from England was the artichoke.

In the closing years of the seventeenth century, there were few plantations in Virginia which did not possess orchards of apple and peach trees, pear, plum, apricot, and quince.² The number of trees was often very large. The orchard of Robert Hide of York³ contained three hundred peach and three hundred apple trees. There were twenty-five hundred apple trees in the orchard of Colonel Fitzhugh.⁴ Each species of fruit was represented by many varieties; thus, of the apple, there were mains, pippins, russentens, costards, marigolds, kings, magitens and batchelors; of the pear, bergamy and warden. The quince was greater in size, but less acidulated than the English quince; on the other hand, the apricot and plum were inferior in quality to the English, not ripening in the same perfection.⁵ Cherries grew in notable abundance. So great was the productive capacity of the peach that some of the landowners planted orchards of the tree for the mere purpose of using the fruit to fatten their hogs;⁶ on some plantations, as many as forty bushels are

said to have been knocked down to the swine in the course of a single season.¹

As a rule, the planters were indisposed to make any effort to improve their fruit by a system of pruning and grafting; the orchards, numerous as they were, were generally neglected, the plentifulness of the yield rather than the quality being most valued. Many persons who had gone to heavy expense to establish very large collections of fruit trees were not sufficiently interested in their preservation to protect them from the depredations of animals.² This indifference was not universal. The greater number of the trees of Colonel Fitzhugh, for instance, had been carefully grafted, and the whole area of ground upon which they stood was surrounded by a locust fence.³ Six or seven years after the scions were planted, they were large enough to bear fruit, so quickly did they arrive at maturity under the influence of the moist climate and the light and sandy soil. The yield was not always consumed either by the hogs or the different persons belonging to the estates on which the trees were situated; the popularity of cider induced many landowners to rent their orchards, and a considerable income was secured from this source. Thus in 1697, Mrs. Mary Naylor, of Elizabeth City County, received from Jacob Walker ten pounds sterling for the lease of her fruit trees in that year.⁴ Fitzhugh in describing his orchard of twenty-five hundred apple trees, declared that it ought in a few years to bring in an annual sum of fifteen thousand pounds of tobacco.⁵

Glover during his visit to Virginia remarked upon the

excellence of the figs, which in his opinion were equal to those which were grown in Spain. No English currants were seen by him in the Colony. He informs us that it was now fully admitted that oranges were not adapted to the soil or the climate. The hope that the olive could be cultivated still survived. In 1684, Fitzhugh decided to repeat the trial which had been so often undertaken already, with such a small degree of success, being prompted to the step by the fact that Virginia was in the same latitude as several countries in which this fruit was known to prosper. He instructed Samuel Haywood in England to send him olive plants procured from these lands. No record has been transmitted as to the result of Fitzhugh’s experiment, but it is highly probable that, like all the previous ones, it ended in a complete failure.

But little attention was paid to the culture of the grape, the masses of the people being content with the fruit of the wild vines growing in such quantities in every part of the forest.¹ There were not many vines in the gardens of the planters. Few as they were in number, no effort was made to improve them, either by the process of cutting or laying, and this was especially improvident in the light of the fact, which had been long observed, that whenever one of the wild vines was exposed to the full rays of the sun and the free circulation of the air, it brought forth with an abundance that was five or six times in excess of the production of a vine hidden away in the deep shadows of the woods. When forced to trail upon the ground, or when allowed the support of a trellis, and at the same time subjected to the process of slipping, the wild vine exhibited in a few years an extraordinary degree of fecundity. From the native grape, a wine was manufactured

by some planters, which was described as smaller in body than French claret.¹ Colonel Beverley, a man of inquiring mind, having become much interested in the general question of vintages, to some extent probably from the example set by the Huguenot colonists,² planted a small vineyard, and having good reason to anticipate a very fair yield of grapes, boasted among his friends and acquaintances of his expectations. On being bantered for his exaggerated statements, Beverley proposed a bet of one guinea to ten that he would secure a designated number of gallons of wine from his first vintage. He won the wager, and the money which he thus obtained he expended in the enlargement of his vineyards with a view to increasing the production. The quantity of wine he made was so large that he was able to supply his family and slaves with it abundantly, and they used it with a freedom that was only generally customary in Europe. A French traveller³ who visited Colonel Beverley in the early part of the eighteenth century, and who from his birthplace was doubtless an excellent judge of the quality of wine, was disposed to think from the samples he tasted that his host was not entirely familiar with the proper methods of making it. The defects which he discovered must have been inherent and not, as he supposed, attributable to ignorant management. Jones, who probably lacked the experience of Fontaine, declared that the red wine of Virginia resembled claret in taste and red port in strength. It is an interesting fact that he pointed out the admirable adaptability to grape culture of the country lying in the direction

of the mountains, which in a more recent age has become the seat of wine manufacture in the State, and which in the future may develop into the greatest wine-producing district in the Western Hemisphere, after California.

An account of the agricultural interests of Virginia in the closing decade of the seventeenth century would not be complete without some reference to its live stock at that time. In the course of this important period, there is observed a growing desire among the people of Virginia to improve the breed of their horses. It is remarkable that this feeling had not been exhibited at a still earlier date in the older communities of the Colony, since for fifty years previous to 1686, when the Assembly of Virginia enacted its most carefully considered law for the improvement of the strain of these animals, much interest had been shown in England in the same subject. Before 1660, a number of Arab, Barb, and Turkish stallions had been imported into the mother country for the purpose of producing a fine type of horse, both for the saddle and for the turf, and several standard books on the subject had been written. Charles the Second had bought the four foreign mares which are generally regarded as the beginning of the breed of English thoroughbreds, and his successor had encouraged the introduction of Eastern blood. A number of planters in the Colony, who had emigrated from England after reaching the age of manhood, must have acquired in their early associations a great fondness for the excitement of the turf as well as cultivated a love of the animal for itself. In the inventory of the live stock of Virginia in 1649, it was stated, as has been seen, that many of the horses and mares to be found there at that time were of excellent blood, and this does not seem to be at all improbable.

The decline in the physical character of the Virginian

breed previous to the law of 1686, was due to the cause which has been touched upon already. It was hardly practicable for the owners to devote much attention to their horses as long as they were compelled to allow them to run at large in the woods, under which circumstances the finest live stock in the world would have rapidly degenerated, not only because there was a promiscuous intercourse among the animals, the basest and purest blood being indiscriminately mingled, but also because the precariousness of subsistence in the forests was calculated in itself to dwarf their size. In this struggle for sufficient food, only the staunchest and most hardy specimens survived. When the law of 1686 was passed, the horses of the Colony, however defective in size, were remarkable for their fleetness and their powers of endurance. The disadvantage attending their smallness in stature seems to have been so great that the House of Burgesses considered it necessary to adopt some measure which would either remove the drawback entirely, or diminish it very materially. It was through the influence of this feeling that the law of 1686 was enacted, which provided that no stallion under thirteen and a half hands in height, and not yet two years old, should be suffered to range at liberty in the woods or in the marshes where they might have access to mares. Loss of the animal was the penalty for the violation of this Act, it becoming the property of the informer, provided the owner did not appear and pay four hundred pounds of tobacco in the course of two months. The law was to be in operation during seven years from the date of its passage.¹ Unfortunately, it was not enforced.²

So numerous had the wild horses grown to be at the close of the century that one of the principal sports of the

young men of the Colony was to hunt them, not infrequently with the assistance of dogs. Saddle horses were trained especially for the purpose of threading the heavy timber of the forests at a high rate of speed. In consequence of the extraordinary fleetness of these wild animals, it was often impossible to catch them, a fine horse being frequently ruined irretrievably, by its rider through the exertions which it was spurred on to make. The only result of the chase, in many instances, was the seizure of an old animal, which was found to be too sullen to tame. Owing to the large number of foals born in the woods and remaining unmarked, the hunting of wild horses was not unprofitable, as to the captors belonged those upon which no brand had been placed.¹ One of the provisions of the law of 1691 shows how numerous were the horses running at large in the forests. Under no circumstances previous to that year was the owner of cultivated land suffered, in driving the cattle of his neighbors from his enclosures, to kill them deliberately, notwithstanding that the damage had been frequently repeated by the same animals. According to the terms of the statute of 1691, all horses discovered in the act of depredating upon orchards surrounded by a legal pale, could upon the third offence be shot on the spot, without exposing the person who destroyed them to any form of punishment at the hands of the law,²

So widely dispersed were the horses belonging to the same owner that it was often impossible after his death to run them together with a view to their appraisement with his other properties.³ This occurred in the case of the

Asheton estate in the Northern Neck in 1687, and also in the case of other estates equally as large. It was sometimes the custom of a number of planters to unite in the confinement of their horses to a neck of land, where they were permitted to roam at liberty, only they were periodically driven into a pen, and the special mark of each owner branded upon the foals born to his mares in the interval. In order to prevent any secret encroachments upon the rights of each other, it was generally required that a notice of an intention to drive the herd should be given by the persons interested, at the parish church, two weeks previous to its actual undertaking.¹

In 1688, Clayton states that the average value of horses in the Colony was five pounds sterling. This amount exceeded rather than fell below the ordinary prices as disclosed in the contemporaneous records of court. There is an instance in Henrico of the sale of an animal of this kind at twelve pounds and eleven shillings,² and in Middlesex, at seven pounds.³ In 1690, a mare, two years old, was valued in York at two pounds and five shillings, and one, four years old, at two pounds and two shillings; some years previous to this, a mare of the same age had been sold in the same county for two pounds and five shillings, a difference so small as to show that these figures represented the general appraisement of such an animal.⁴ In 1699, a mare eight years of age was valued in Henrico at four pounds;⁵ and about the same

time one nine years old was appraised in York at two pounds and ten shillings, this difference being attributable to some inequality in their relative excellence.¹ From 1688 to 1700, the average value of a coach or saddle horse in England was fifteen pounds sterling,² ten pounds sterling more than the value of the same kind of horse in Virginia.

There is no reason to think that horses were at this period in as common use as oxen as draught animals, and this is partially explained by the fact that it was less difficult to obtain food for the latter in winter. There are many indications, however, that horses had a prominent place in the economy of the plantation. Collars, in some cases made of flag, in others of ticking, are frequently entered in the inventory of an estate.³ Both collars and traces were ordered by planters in Virginia from their English merchants.⁴ The cart of the seventeenth century, which was drawn indiscriminately by oxen and horses, was sometimes spoken of as a tumbril.⁵ The body appears to have been always manufactured in the Colony, but the wheels were frequently imported from England, their rims being shod with iron. A wheel thus protected was such a valuable article that it was often specifically bequeathed. It was occasionally the subject of a suit. The value of a pair included in an inventory in 1686, was two pounds and five shillings sterling, just five shillings less than that of a similar pair in 1670, a difference possibly due to the condition of the respective wheels.⁶

The number of horned cattle running wild in the forests of Virginia in the last years of the seventeenth century was even greater than the number of horses. Bulls and cows as untamed as those which, in the present age, are found on the South American pampas, frequented parts of York County as late as 1685, forming herds which it was difficult to approach on account of their extraordinary acuteness in smelling. These cattle were hunted with guns as if they were elk or deer.¹ So wide were the ranges in which even the domesticated animals wandered, that, in appraising an estate, the number of bulls, cows, and calves belonging to it were rarely ascertained with exactness.² For the Northern Neck, which was held under a proprietary title, a ranger general was appointed, whose duty it was, in the person of his under rangers, to seize all the unmarked live stock roaming in that part of the Colony, and to appropriate them in the name of his principal.³ There was no officer of this kind in the other counties of Virginia. In order to show their ownership in the neat cattle let loose in the forest, it was the custom of the planters to use brands representing various devices. In some cases the one selected was a fleur de luce in the left ear and a half moon in both ears, or a fleur de luce in the left ear and a hole or a swallow fork in the right, or an underkeel in one ear and an overkeel in the other. These marks were recorded in the county courts.⁴ The

cow-bell was in general use, but was employed to disclose the whereabouts of the cattle, and not to indicate the ownership.¹ Herdsmen were also not uncommon.²

There were few inventories at this time that did not show the presence of neat cattle among the properties which they included, but the number held does not appear to have been very much larger than what has been noted in the case of estates in the decades immediately previous. From the variety of colors distinguishing the horned cattle entered in the appraisements, it would be inferred that there were no distinct breeds in the Colony, the original ones having become by repeated crossings so confused in blood as to represent no separate types except in an extremely modified form. There is proof, however, that the importation of bulls from England was not unknown, and this step must have been taken with a view to improving the physical character of the stock. The neat cattle at this period suffered even more than the horses from the hardships and privations to which they were exposed in the winter, many perishing in the spring, because, having ventured after the young grass in the marshes, they were too weak to extricate themselves from the quagmires into which hunger had led them. The wealthiest planters, from this cause, sometimes lost as many as thirty head apiece. Among the horned cattle a curious habit was observed

as soon as the spring tides began to pour their floods into the rivers and estuaries; an irresistible impulse taking possession of them, they would make for the salt water, travelling twenty and thirty miles to reach it, [sic] The planters were so familiar with this habit that they were fully aware where their herds had strayed, and at their leisure sent out slaves and servants to drive them back to their former pastures.¹

In the course of his sojourn in the Colony, Clayton displayed as much interest in the preservation of the cattle as in the cultivation of tobacco. According to him, the opinion prevailed among a large number of planters that to feed live stock in winter was to prepare the way for their destruction. He sought very earnestly to combat this notion as far as it was entertained by the lady with whom he resided during a part of his stay in Virginia. He urged that wheat should be sown in time for it to reach a fair size before the cold weather set in, in order that it might furnish grazing. He recommended moreover that the tops and blades of the corn-stalks, and also straw, should be laid aside as food for the cattle. No hay was now produced in the Colony as a cultivated crop; when Fitzhugh, in 1680, desired to sow a few bushels of grass seed, he was compelled to export them from England, and his attention was only directed to hay at all by the extreme depression in the price of tobacco.² Clayton advised his hostess to raise sanfoin, as the soil was largely composed of sand. The custom of providing no food for the horned cattle was not universal. It is probable that

the milch cows were fed in winter. Clayton himself declares that some of the planters furnished their live stock with corn in the morning, which he considered to be a mistake, because it made them indisposed to browse upon the trees. Allusions to “foddering” the cattle are not infrequent in the depositions entered in the records of the county courts.¹

Clayton, writing in 1688, states that at this time the price of a cow and call was fifty shillings, their size not being taken into consideration in the purchase, and the county records show that he was substantially correct.² In 1690, the value of four cows in Elizabeth City County was placed at forty shillings apiece;³ this was also the value of those owned by John Carter of Lancaster.⁴ In the following year a cow, five years of age, was appraised in York at thirty-five shillings. In 1682, three were appraised in Henrico at one hundred and five, or thirty-five apiece. A heifer, three years of age, was valued in the same county at twenty shillings, and a yearling in Elizabeth City at fifteen.⁵ In 1698, cows were valued in Middlesex at forty shillings.⁶ Bulls were appraised at this time at a uniformly low figure. In Henrico one, which was two years old, was valued at ten shillings, and another; three years old, at twelve. In Elizabeth City, in 1690, the young animal was appraised at twenty. In York, in 1686, a bull, one year of age, was valued at ten shillings, and another, four years of age, at twenty-one. In 1693, in the same county, a bull, probably of the same

age, was valued at twenty-five. The appraisement in Middlesex ran from twenty to thirty shillings.¹ Steers also were considered to be less valuable than cows. In Henrico, one, four years old, was appraised at thirty shillings, and another, two years old, at ten. There is an instance, however, of a steer, two years of age, being valued at twenty-five shillings. A sucking calf in the same county was appraised at three.² These figures show that while cows were the dearest of all neat cattle, yet they were not considered so valuable as horses, a difference to be attributed to the comparative scarcity of the latter animals. The enormous increase in the number of neat cattle in the Colony after 1627, when both cows and oxen were sold for fifteen pounds, was most strikingly shown in the falling off in the average appraisement of cows to two pounds sterling, and of oxen to thirty-five shillings. The sharpest decline began subsequent to the middle of the century.

It was not until 1690 that flocks of sheep became objects of common observation in Virginia; previous to this, a saddle or leg of mutton was thought to be a much finer dish than venison, wild goose, widgeon, or teal.³ In the last decade of the century the inventories reveal the fact that sheep formed a not unimportant part of many estates. In 1691, among the live stock of Samuel Hollier, of Elizabeth City, were two rams, five wethers, and seventeen ewes; Thomas Price, of this county, in the same year possessed

one ram and thirty-one ewes; Peter Roby, twenty-seven ewes and one ram.¹ In 1689, Mrs. Rowland Jones, of York, owned thirty-six sheep and James Goodwyn thirty-three; three years later Robert Booth, of the same county, owned two rams, four wethers, and thirty-six ewes and lambs.² Robert Miller, of Elizabeth City, possessed in the same year eighteen sheep, and Quintillian Gutteriek seven.³ In 1697, John Pleasants, a wealthy planter of Henrico, bequeathed in his will, which was placed on record in his lifetime, a ram and ten ewes to his eldest son, a ram and ten ewes to his second son, and a ram and six ewes to his daughter. In the following year, the Stratton estate is found to include seventeen sheep Thomas Osborne owned eighteen and Thomas Batte thirty-two.⁴

In Middlesex, Richard Willis possessed twenty-four sheep, Robert Dudley twenty-eight, Corbin Griffin thirty-nine, Robert Beverley fifty-seven, and Ralph Wormeley eighty-six.⁵ The estate of John Carter, of Lancaster, included one hundred and ninety-two.⁶ William Porteus and Adam Thoroughgood, of Norfolk County, owned forty-one and forty-nine, respectively.⁷

The references to this animal in the inventories recorded in the frontier counties are comparatively few, the number there being small on account of the depredations of wolves, which, by ravaging such sheep as the planters possessed, discouraged them from giving much attention to this branch of husbandry. The allowance made in the levies of Henrico County for the payment of prizes granted for the destruction of wolves was an important item of expense as late as 1700. In 1699, the levy for the six months ending with October, showed that the heads of thirty had been presented to the officers of the county for the purpose of securing the reward, which was two hundred pounds for each one if killed with a gun, or three hundred if caught in a trap.¹ The payments in the counties situated in the lower part of the Peninsula indicate that these animals had not disappeared from the forests there. In the public levy for November, 1698, in Elizabeth City County, an appropriation in tobacco was made for two heads that had been brought in. In the following year, nine heads were offered in order to obtain the reward.² Wolves do not appear to have been so numerous in York County. In 1685, there was an appropriation of three hundred pounds of tobacco in one of the levies for their destruction. The allowance in 1686 was for two heads, and it was for the same number in 1692. In 1696, the allowance was for five heads.³

In Lower Norfolk County, an appropriation was made in a single levy, in 1693, for fourteen wolves’ heads; in one of the levies in 1695 for twenty heads; two years

later for nineteen, and in the second levy, in 1699, for thirteen.¹

It was not due entirely to the attacks of wolves that the flocks of sheep in the Colony were so small. No systematic effort was made to supply them with fodder or litter, or to protect them in winter from the weather; but in this respect the Virginians were only less negligent than the farmers of England. It was not until 1681, that it was discovered in the mother country that these animals could be supported on turnips when driven from the fields by frost and snow, and that ten acres sown in the seed of this vegetable would furnish them a greater abundance of food than an hundred in ordinary pasture.² The sheep of the Colony were of middling size, exposure doubtless having the same influence in reducing their proportions as was observed in the case of horses and horned cattle; nevertheless, their wool was pronounced by capable judges from England to have been as fine in quality as the wool of the flocks ranging in the vicinity of Leominster.³ It is a fact of interest that this commodity was cheaper in Virginia in the seventeenth century than in England. This was due to the small use made of it in the Colony in the manufacture of clothing, as compared with the consumption in this form in the mother country. The average price of wool in the latter did not exceed twelve pence.⁴ In 1691, nine and one-half pounds were valued in Elizabeth City County at three shillings and nine

pence; and thirteen and a half pounds, belonging to the same estate and probably of better quality, at three shillings additional.¹ In 1670, fifty-three pounds of washed wool were appraised in York at four and one-half pence a pound; unwashed wool was in the same year valued at three pence. In 1695, sixty pounds were valued in this county at six pence a pound. Three years later, a pound of washed wool was rated in York at ten pence.² In 1692, a pound was entered in Lancaster at five pence, and in Lower Norfolk in 1681 at six.³ As wool was cheaper in Virginia than in England, it is not surprising to find that a sheep commanded a slightly lower price in the Colony than in the mother country.⁴ The average value in all the counties seems to have been eight shillings; even when old they did not sell for less than seven. Lambs were appraised at four and five shillings.⁵

In the last years of the century, the hogs owned by the planters had become so numerous and were allowed to roam so much at liberty, that they were not always included in the appraisement of estates. The proprietorship of a drove was determined by the few which the owner had been able to catch and brand.⁶ Sufficient interest was felt in this form of property to cause planters to insist upon the continuation of the law requiring the

friendly Indians to use a tribal mark for the hogs belonging to them. The exports of pork as well as of beef were so large, that not only was the size of the barrel prescribed by statute, but public packers were appointed who were heavily fined in case they accepted unwholesome meat, or allowed it to be placed in a receptacle above or below the legal size. The justices of the peace selected marks for the barrels shipped from places in their jurisdiction, and the quantity which each contained was also stamped on its face.¹ A large amount of pork was often sent out by individual planters; thus in 1689, Sebastian Perrin, of Elizabeth City County, exported at one time thirty barrels, which were valued at £21, 5s. 9d., or four hundred dollars approximately in modern American currency.² Specialties for this kind of meat were unusually common in Norfolk County.³ The appraisement of hogs in Virginia, as was to be expected, was somewhat lower than in the mother country at this time. In 1690, six yearling shoats were valued in York at four shillings apiece; in England, shoats, six months old, commanded, in 1700, seven shillings and three pence. In Virginia, eight shillings constituted the average price of sows and barrows.⁴