Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/463

 the general division of country adjacent to the Neck was of precisely the same character, but the difference in the product revealed that this was not so. We have here an instance recalling the history of many of the most famous brands of foreign wines, the growth of the grapes from which they are made being in many cases restricted, not to certain parts of Europe, but to single vineyards covering an area of comparatively few acres.

William Fitzhugh, who not only planted tobacco himself but also purchased a large quantity annually, was of the opinion that the soil of the country north of the Rappahannock was as well adapted as that of the Peninsula to the development of the finest grades of the leaf. In a letter to James Bligh, an English merchant with whom he had dealings in 1697, he announced that he had sent to his correspondent&#8217;s address a certain quantity of the stemmed, sweet-scented variety, which he asserted to be as excellent in quality as the same kind from York, a statement that he justifies by his experience in selling the product of this county in the markets of London and Bristol during a period of several years. Whether or not the soil of the Northern Neck was as conducive to the growth of sweet-scented tobacco as the soil of the Peninsula, it was cultivated in the former part of the country to a very great extent. Fitzhugh seems to have planted the Oronoco or the sweet-scented just as his anticipation as to which of the two would ensure the largest profit when disposed of in England dictated. In 1685, he is found in possession of thirty or forty hogsheads of the latter, which were in large measure the product of his own lands. In 1688, his crop of Oronoco amounted in volume to one hundred casks, but as it commanded a very