Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/459

 of the whole planting class. Mr. Clayton, who was a clergyman by profession, was flatly informed that he knew very much better how to compose a sermon than how to produce tobacco, and was warned not to interfere further with a man who had learned his business from practical experience. Doubtless it appeared to the overseer the very height of presumption on the part of the guest of his mistress, a man who had, perhaps, never seen the plant in his life until his arrival a few weeks before in Virginia, to be seeking to instruct him as to the soil best adapted to its production. In enforcing his views, Mr. Clayton, no doubt, spoke dogmatically, and his confidence in the soundness of his advice was further sustained by the claims which he laid to considerable scientific knowledge. A Virginian overseer of the seventeenth century, however, was not to be overawed by such pretensions.

The English clergyman was not discouraged by the bluntness of the overseer in warning him to confine himself to his sermons. His reflections at the moment were, as we learn from what he subsequently published, that the Virginians were &#8220;conceitedly bent on following their old custom and practice,&#8221; and were opposed to receiving instructions from others, however plain, easy and advantageous they might be. This state of feeling be disclosed some time afterwards on offering the same advice to his hostess, who proved to be much more compliant than her overseer. She adopted his suggestion, and in the proper season directed that the swamp should be drained, although in doing so she gave her agent such offence as to lead to his withdrawal from her employment. In the following year, when the exposed soil had become thoroughly dry, it was cultivated in tobacco and brought forth plants almost unexampled in size. Mr. Clayton records with evident pride and satisfaction in the accuracy of his