Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/244

 manipulation, to predict that after the test of longer trial and the incurrence of a little more expense, it would bear a favorable comparison with the tobacco of the West Indies. Hamor, who seems to have had an accurate knowledge of every grade of this commodity, declared that the Colony, as early as 1614, afforded a plant equal to that of Trinidad, and as strong, sweet, and pleasant as any cultivated under the sun, and he stated further, that the people were rapidly acquiring so much knowledge as to the best way of curing it that it must in a short time become as popular in England as the Spanish product. By 1616, this knowledge must have been very much increased. Dale had probably been influenced by a very strong reason in allowing the culture of tobacco to be gradually extended until, as we have seen, it absorbed the whole attention of all the laborers in two of the settlements. There can be little doubt that at this time it commanded the readiest sale in England of all the products of Virginia. The cultivation of wheat and maize was intended entirely for the support of the persons who had been living in the Colony, or who proposed taking up their residence there; not one grain was for export; on the other hand, the whole of the tobacco crop was designed for shipment to England, there to be sold by the Company, and the proceeds returned in clothing for the settlers.

Tobacco, however, was not the only product of Virginia transported to England during the administration of Dale. Eleven commodities were at this time annually sent to the mother country, in the hope that the Colony