Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/283

 could have given for a bushel of wheat or maize in Virginia, with the assurance of a moderate gain in selling it in England, after allowing for all the fixed and incidental charges, was not over three shillings, or about three dollars and sixty cents in our modern currency. It was not possible for grain to have been cultivated in the Colony at this rate of expense and then sold at a profit.

If the dependence of the people for the supplies furnished by the mother country had rested upon wheat, the Colony would not have survived the period of infancy. Several reasons may be advanced in explanation of this. The rich mould of the new grounds was shown by actual test to be poorly adapted to this cereal, the strength of the plant being absorbed in the stalk. It came to perfection in fields which, from previous cultivation in maize and tobacco, had not only been reduced in fertility but also cleared of stumps, but the lack of manures would soon have made it impossible to continue the production in the same spots after the soil had been exhausted; it was, therefore, just as essential to enlarge the area sown in wheat as it was the area planted in tobacco, and this would have meant, if the former rather than the latter had been the only crop of the Colony, a more active struggle to destroy the forests because a much greater area was required for the cultivation of wheat. From year to year the process of opening new grounds would