Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/437

 was uncommon to find persons leasing lands, not only because there were unusual facilities for acquiring such property in fee simple, in consequence of which the great body of the planters owned the soil that they tilled, but also because men who possessed no estates preferred to earn their livelihood by serving as overseers, or by following other occupations rather than by becoming tenants. This statement was as correct in its application to the Colony throughout the whole of the seventeenth century as it was in the early part of the eighteenth. The reason for this was the same at both periods. Not only was there in the seventeenth century an abundance of land to be taken up in fee simple, but it was also so difficult and expensive to open new grounds that, when the forest had been once removed from the soil, it was the habit of the owner, as it was of all of his fellow-planters in the same situation, to cultivate it until it was incapable of producing a profitable crop. There were comparatively few persons who were willing to rent to tenants fertile land which had been cleared and was in fine condition; and there were probably still fewer who were ready to lease from the owners fields that had been overworked. The man who could afford to rent an area of ground in forest and remove the trees from its surface, would generally prefer to sue out a patent to a tract of his own and expend the same labor in putting it in a proper state for tillage. It is doubtful whether one crop of tobacco would remunerate the tenant for the expense of hewing down the woods covering the soil which he had leased. The owner of the average estate would hardly allow the free use of his new grounds for a period longer than a year, as they were so easily exhausted as to become in three years worthless for all products but wheat and maize, which were of subordinate importance in the eyes of the