Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/485

 market, and yet this condition, which always seemed at hand and at times appeared actually to have arrived, had been staved off, and arguing from experience in the past would yet be in the future.

There was never a prolonged disposition on the part of the people of the Colony to abandon for any length of time the culture of the plant and direct their attention to other products. This disinclination was as notable in the closing as in the early part of the century. The fact that all forms of public dues, such as quit-rents, levies, and tithes were still paid in tobacco had a strong tendency to give to this commodity the first importance in the esteem of the population of that age. Jones, writing many years later, declared that in his own recollection, several English farmers had settled in Virginia and attempted to continue there the cultivation of the crops to which they had been accustomed in their native country. They had failed, in his opinion, because they would not make proper allowance for a difference in soil, climate, and seasons. The expense and labor imposed upon them in destroying the forest as well as in erecting barns and dwelling-houses had been so discouraging, that by the time that their plantations had been put in condition for grain, they were compelled to turn their attention to tobacco, to ensure the income of which they now stood in such urgent need. There is no reason to doubt that precisely the same influences were at work in the last years of the seventeenth century to dishearten every colonist who undertook to confine himself to the cereals. There are, however,