Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/279

 Seven years after the original experiment of Rolfe, a Mr. Lambert introduced the plan of stringing the leaves upon lines, this being the first step in the evolution of the tobacco stick so well known to all familiar with the culture of the plant in the present age.

and the freight could not have been less than this amount on commodities shipped to England from the Colony, whether conveyed in the vessels of the Company or not. The freight charge on wheat by the ton in 1640 was three pounds sterling. It was not less twenty years earlier. The clear loss, therefore, which that Corporation. In 1618, the authorities of the Company in England received permission to sell by the candle one thousand pounds of tobacco transported from the Bermudas in the form of rolls.