Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/417

 uselessness of stinting the quantity cultivated in the two Colonies unless the curtailment was extended to the English dominions in the West Indies.

This was not the first suggestion as to a prohibition of planting after a certain day which had been offered by the Virginians. In the previous year this plan of remedying the evil of over-production had been brought forward in the Assembly at Jamestown, it being then enacted that no tobacco should be transferred from the bed to the field after the month of June, provided that the consent of the people of Maryland to follow the same course could be obtained. In case it could not, then the existing rule restricting planting to the season preceding July 10th was to remain in force. The earnestness of the colonists in establishing the regulation was shown in their refusal to admit that the royal pardon could be extended to an offence against its provisions.

In 1664, the tobacco gathered in Virginia and Maryland amounted in volume to fifty thousand hogsheads. As the population of both Colonies was about forty thousand at this time, the production to the individual was equal to a hogshead and a half; the average cask was now valued at three pounds sterling, which made the whole crop worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, or three pounds and three-quarters for every person. It is not surprising to find that the smallness of this price brought the planters in debt to the extent of fifty thousand pounds sterling. These facts were set forth in a petition offered to the King in the course of this year by the Governor and Council of Virginia, who complained that the people of Maryland had disobeyed the order of 1662 commanding a curtailment of production in the two