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 the annual crop of the republic at the present time. Never has there been on this continent, however, an equal number of acres of maize which were invested with so deep an historic interest, or upon which so vital an issue depended. Of the harvest of these forty acres, a part at least was never garnered by the men who planted the seed. When the Third Supply arrived in the autumn, the large body of persons who composed it were very short of provisions, and without scruple or hesitation they took possession of a field of seven acres, and in three days had devoured every ear of maize which it contained.

The forty acres which were planted in maize in the spring of 1609, were cultivated entirely by hand, the spade being probably the only instrument used in the process, or at the most, the spade, the shovel, and the hoe. The supply of these implements had been, as we have seen, seriously diminished by the colonists exchanging a large number of them for the different articles which the Indians offered for sale. Previous to the departure of Smith in the autumn of 1609, there is no reason to suppose that there was a plough at work in Virginia; it was not until the following year that the Company in England began to advertise for plough-wrights with a view to their importation into the Colony. The plough at this time was a very primitive implement, its composition being of wood with the exception of the tips and shares, which were pieces of iron fastened to the parts most inclined to wear from their more direct contact with the soil. At the beginning of the