Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/359

 aluable, and in consequence of the fence law there was so much danger of their going astray, that the branding iron was used very freely in marking them. The gift or assignment of a cow or heifer and her future offspring became now very common, and the transfer was as a rule considered important enough to be placed on record; if the beneficiary of the present was under age, as was so often the case, overseers were appointed to take charge of the animal until the minor reached maturity.

In 1645, cows were sold in New England as high in some cases as thirty pounds sterling, which explains the exportation of so large a number from Virginia to the northern colonies. The price afterwards fell to five pounds. At this time the value of horned cattle seems to have varied but little in different parts of Virginia itself. In 1644, cows were appraised in York at five hundred pounds of tobacco apiece, which was equivalent to sixty-two shillings. In 1647 and 1648, they were appraised in the same county at three hundred and twenty pounds, and this was maintained on the average until the close of the century. In 1648, a full-grown cow belonging to the Yates estate in Lower Norfolk was valued at four hundred pounds, but this was exceptional. In 1640, a bull in Virginia, which had been wantonly killed, was decided by the General Court to be worth seven hundred pounds, which at three pence a pound was equivalent to