Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/549

 author by the system prevailing in several continental countries, in which the village was the centre of each agricultural community. It only shows how ignorant were the Englishmen of that day of the economic conditions in operation in Virginia as a consequence of the peculiar character of their staple product. This product, as already pointed out, promoted irresistibly the constant enlargement of the plantation, dispersed the population, and sank the importance of the community, while it raised the importance of the separate estate. The proposition that the owners of the land should reside in towns might have been practicable had they been able to rent their plantations to tenants after the English fashion, but, as has already been observed, there was no marked disposition among the inhabitants of the Colony to lease lands on account of the vast extent of the virgin soil which remained unappropriated. The average planter was compelled to give his personal attention to the management of his property, whether he had an overseer in his employment or not. If all the landowners of a large neighborhood had lived together in a single village, it would have been necessary for each one to spend a considerable portion of his time each day in making the journey to and from his plantation. This plan of life was not possible in a country where the estates, owing to their extent, were remote from a common centre. Such a physical obstacle would have been insurmountable even if the natural leaning of the people of the Colony had been towards urban life. But this was not their inclination, and all the influences of tobacco culture tended to confirm their disposition in the opposite direction.

If there really existed any desire among the planters at large to promote the building of towns, it would have taken no practical shape but for the periodical instructions