Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/335

 of the Colony. When he arrived, he found that the people were suffering from a great dearth of grain, owing to the excessive attention paid to the culture of tobacco. In March, 1629-30, a stringent regulation had been adopted, requiring that at least two acres of grain for every person who was engaged in actual work in the ground should be planted. In the interval preceding the harvest of the crop of 1630, Harvey dispatched a vessel as far as Cape Fear to procure a supply of Indian corn, and he also sent an agent on a voyage in the Chesapeake Bay, with a cargo of merchandise of various sorts to be used in trading for maize with the Indians. Three hundred bushels were obtained by this means, which were devoted to the present relief of the colonists, thus assuring the preservation of the grain in the fields until it had fully ripened. The danger of the famishing people falling upon the unmatured maize, and thus not only exposing themselves to the risk of sickness in eating it, but also exhausting the store which ought to be kept for the following winter, was in this way entirely removed.