Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/272

 were substantially correct is proved by the statement already quoted, of George Sandys as to the indifference of the planters to these commodities. Sandys seems to have made the same effort after the massacre to revive the culture of the grape as he had done to revive the culture of silk, and in this he was supported by the Assembly, a law being passed in 1623, that for every four men in the Colony a garden should be laid off to be planted in part in vines.

The Frenchmen who were imported into Virginia to superintend the establishment of the vineyards and the manufacture of wine, undertook to test the adaptability of the soil to rice. At the same time, Mr. Gookin, who had settled at Newport&#8217;s News, planted cotton, which soon grew as large in girth as the arm of a man, and tall as a man&#8217;s figure. It was partly his success, and partly the success of others, that led the Governor and Council in March, 1622, to write to the Company in England that they had reason to indulge great hope as to the culture of this staple in the Colony. Not only had the cotton tree, as it was called, of the West Indies been transferred to Virginia, but seeds obtained from the East had also been planted, and they had sprung up and flourished. An attempt was also made to cultivate indigo, but this came to nothing from the ignorance of the colonists as to the proper manner of curing it.