Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/73

 plan than if he had endeavored to restore the original quality of the soil. If it had been possible to obtain domestic or imported manures at a small expense, it would still have been cheaper in the end, the volume of the annual crop being considered, to extend the clearings and to leave nature to bring back the abandoned fields to their primæval excellence. The Virginian planter of the seventeenth century was apparently the greatest of agricultural spendthrifts, but in reality he was only adapting himself to surrounding conditions, which were the reverse of those prevailing in the mother country, where art had to be called in to preserve the ground from the destructive effect of long-continued tillage. Introduced into the Colony where the first principle of agriculture was to abuse because the virgin lands were unlimited in quantity, the institution of slavery was not lessened in value from an industrial point of view by the fact that it did not promote economical methods in the use of the soil.

There is, however, serious reason for doubting whether the charge of wastefulness brought against slave labor in Virginia, not only in the colonial period but in the period between the Revolution and the War between the States, was not to be laid at the door of the great staple, tobacco, rather than at the door of the institution of slavery itself. No country devoted exclusively to the cultivation of this staple is likely to present an appearance of thrift, unless its surface should be occupied by small proprietors working their own estates, and making use of every foot of available ground. The tobacco plant requires for its production loam in the greatest quantity and of the highest quality. There is always a disposition on the part of those engaged in its cultivation to widen the plantation, even now, when