Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/189

 instance of maize. The plan of sowing broadcast in a separate bed and then transplanting, the plan which has come down to the present day, was suggested to the colonists by the rule followed in the case of so many vegetables in England. Forty years after the foundation of Jamestown, there was no information extant as to the aboriginal method of cultivating tobacco when it had attained a considerable size, beyond the fact that there was a tradition that the Indians permitted each stalk to run to seed, and that they removed the suckers in order to give it a somewhat greater bulk. When the plant began to show signs of ripeness, the leaves were pulled from the stalk and dried by the heat of the fire or the sun. In the use of fire, they set an example which the English colonists for a hundred and fifty years failed in the manipulation of their annual crop to follow, being content simply to hang it up in barns, where it was exposed to a free circulation of air. When the tobacco was thoroughly cured, stalk and leaf were crumbled together. It was turned to account in various ways. Among the Indians, however, enjoyment of it as a stimulant seems to have been confined to smoking. Their pipes were constructed either of clay or wampum peak, a species of shell, and differed in size and in length of stein among the several tribes. During the visit of Smith to the country of the gigantic Susquehannocks, he observed in their possession pipes with stems nearly a yard from end to end, upon which figures of birds and animals had been carved with great dexterity. So large and heavy were these stems that a well-directed blow with them was sufficient to brain the strongest man.