Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/329

 of tending tobacco, and of manipulating it after it had been removed from the hill, the largest number proceeded immediately after their arrival to cultivate it, although it was a plant foreign to any agricultural training which they had previously received in England. This was only one of the many causes of the production of so much of the commodity belonging to the lowest grades.

The finest tobacco was spoken of as the long sort, which the colonists were especially commanded to cultivate, all ether kinds being strictly prohibited. The manner of curing the leaf was still defective, because the experience of the oldest planters did not extend over the course of a generation, and the great body of that class had been engaged in the culture of tobacco only for a few years. There were as yet no extensive set of rules founded upon comparative observation, and transmitted with constant enlargement from decade to decade. Knowledge acquired during a long course of time has shown, that half the virtue of the plant lies in its manipulation after the leaves are gathered, and it may be easily seen that the rude methods of the early Virginian planters would do little to improve the original quality of the commodity.

It was thought by the English merchants that the inferiority of the Virginian to the Spanish leaf was due entirely to the ignorance and carelessness of the planters, and their repeated complaints led to the passage of a strict inspection law. The first statutory regulation established in Virginia, looking to the destruction of the lowest grades, was adopted at the meeting of the first Assembly in 1619. It was then enacted that all the tobacco brought to the Cape Merchant, to be exchanged for goods of various sorts, should be carefully examined by four viewers, two of whom were to be appointed by