Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/408

 demanded for the same grain under the provisions of the statute in Virginia in these two years, the difference between the prices in the Colony and England being attributable to the small amount of barley produced in the former.

In 1666, the price of a quarter of oats in England was thirteen shillings and eleven pence, and in 1682, fifteen shillings two and one-fourth pence, or, measuring by the bushel, about one and three-fourths in each of the years referred to. This was very much lower than the value of this grain in Virginia in 1666 and 1682, the explanation of which fact, as in the instance of barley, is to be sought in the comparative scarcity of oats in the Colony. The approximate equality of the prices of wheat in Virginia and England at this period, reveals how impossible it was for the planters to derive any profit from its conveyance to the mother country, even if the new duties laid on imported grain there had been removed. The great advance in English wheat in 1673, 1674, and 1678 would not have enabled them to surmount the barrier which the customs created. There was not the smallest ground for hoping that either barley or oats could become profitable articles for exportation to England, as their value was higher in Virginia than in the former country.

All the barrels in which Indian corn was sold were stamped by the commissioners of the county courts with the letters V. C. They were required to be sufficiently large to contain forty gallons according to Winchester measure. The size of the tobacco casks was also established by law in consequence of the numerous complaints on the part of the masters of ships as to the variation in the dimensions of the hogsheads, which in some instances