Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/249

 beginning of his official tenure, seems to have adopted measures to extend this favorable condition of agricultural affairs. Every tenant was required to cultivate two acres in grain under penalty of forfeiting his crops, and being reduced to slavery in the public service. Tradesmen were exempted from the binding force of this provision. Argoll sought to obtain an ample quantity of food for the cattle in the rigor of the winter season by prohibiting the use of hay in the preparation of the tobacco for sale; at this time it was the custom to pass the leaves through a period of sweating by throwing them into piles, and covering them with the long grass which had been cut in the surrounding marshes. The best tobacco, under a regulation adopted by Argoll, was not to be sold at a lower rate than three shillings a pound; and to compel the observance of this regulation, three years&#8217; service for the benefit of the Colony was imposed upon any one who violated it.

In the following and closing year of Argoll&#8217;s administration, the cultivation of English wheat was attempted, thirty or forty acres being sown in this staple, but in consequence of the delay in harvesting it, much of the grain became overripe, and fell to the ground and was lost. What remained was placed in the barn erected for the protection of the kine in the time of Dale, where it was devoured by the rats and cattle. A part of the ground in which this crop of wheat was produced had been broken up by the plough. Only one implement of this character was to be found in the Colony in a condition to be worked; there were a sufficient number of steers to serve for draft, but there was a lack of irons,