Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/264

 course of the same year, it consisted generally of barley that had been sowed in July in the soil from which English wheat had been removed, the barley being harvested in October before the frost had had an opportunity of blighting it. When, in 1619, Rolfe was repudiating the scandalous depreciation of Virginia by its enemies, the first information as to which had been brought over by Governor Yeardley himself, he declared that the production of English grain in the Colony, instead of being at the rate of sixteen bushels an acre, as the persons who opposed the prosperity of Virginia asserted, had often amounted to thirty bushels. Hamor had remarked on the superior character of the wheat grown in the Colony, one grain multiplying to forty grains, and the head of the blade often being a span long. The barley, in his opinion, was as fine as any seen in England.

The chief obstacle to overcome in the beginning in the production of wheat was the excessive fertility of the lands at this time under cultivation. Wheat sowed in fields recently cleared of woods showed an enormous development in the stalk, but a stunted growth in the grain; to secure a satisfactory crop from new grounds, it was always necessary to precede it by a crop of tobacco or maize, which reduced the fertility of the soil. The character of the wheat seems to have gradually deteriorated until it failed to give satisfaction as seed. In January, 1621-1622, the Governor and Council wrote to the Company in London to request that a supply should be sent to the Colony to be sown, the annual crop in Virginia