Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/397

 such gifts or derive from them much advantage, for we are informed that they were generally too lazy to milk their cows, and were quietly satisfied to see them perish in winter for the want of food. The inducement offered did not appeal very strongly to the cupidity of the Indians, their love of beef and milk not being as great as their love of pork, for we discover that two years after the novel method of Christianizing them by means of the cow had been tried, the wolves had become so numerous that the Assembly was compelled to authorize the commissioners of the county courts to employ Indian hunters to destroy the packs at stated wages of a nature more valuable in Indian estimation than the gift of a cow.

It was not the wolves alone that diminished the number of cattle belonging to the planters. It had grown to be a habit at this time for owners of land, who had become involved in debt, to withdraw beyond the Chesapeake Bay or to the remotest plantations, and in doing this to carry off with them, not only their own live stock, but the live stock of their neighbors, the two generally running together, as the ranges were unenclosed. To prevent the serious losses incurred in this way, it was provided that a notice of the intention to emigrate to other parts of the Colony should be announced at the county court, and a certificate of the fact obtained from the clerk. By this requirement all of the planters residing in the immediate vicinity of a person who had decided to abandon his home were put on their guard, so that they might take every precaution against the driving away of their cattle. As an additional protection, a severe penalty was imposed upon whoever should seize and use stray horses, cows, and oxen without reporting the fact to the county court, and