or rent these abandoned fields for a nominal price.

Crops Other Than Tobacco

While tobacco played a very important part in building a prosperous colony at Jamestown, there were several other staples that also contributed to this result. Of prime importance should be rated maize or Indian Corn. Maize saved the colony from starvation on several occasions. Maize became an export commodity to the New England and West Indian colonies when the price for tobacco fell below the cost of transportation to Europe. Maize aided the colonists in the production of valuable livestock products. This crop has done more to promote the wealth and welfare of this country than all the natural resources, water-power, and forests put together. In order to increase the production of grain in 1623, the General Assembly ordered: "For the encouragement of men to plant store of corne, the prise shall not be stinted but it shall be free for every man to sell it as deere as he can." This law had a wholesome effect. It so increased the production of maize that seven years later as has already been noted, the colonists had a surplus of this product to export to New England. This is perhaps the first law passed in America for the direct benefit of the producers. It stands out in strong contrast to some legislative enactments. There were many other grain laws put on the statute books but the majority of them either fixed the maximum price for which the grain could be sold or else prohibited its exportation. The authorities in England were continually clamoring for products to supplement the tobacco exports.

Until 1685, each succeeding Governor as he sailed to Virginia was instructed to "use every means in his power to encourage the production of silk, wine, hemp, flax, pitch and potashes." The reason for finally omitting this clause is interesting. The King was concerned about the revenue the government was deriving from tobacco and did not wish for the colonists to engage in any enterprise that might diminish the volume of leaf that was coming to England. The omission of this clause marked a new era in the relation of the colony to the Mother Country. During the sixty years the clause was in force, several Governors, notably Wyatt, Harvey and Berkeley, had tried to comply with the wishes of the authorities in England, with extremely meager results to show for their efforts.

Silk Culture

There is very little justification for including silk culture as an enterprise in the agricultural history of the Jamestown Colony. It was one product that was usually placed first in recommendations of the authorities who sponsored the settlement of Virginia.

In keeping with the improved status of the social and economic life of England, in the latter years of the sixteenth century, came a desire for finer and more lustrous fabrics in their articles of dress. Serges and tweeds, woven from the fleeces of their coarse-wooled sheep, no longer satisfied the fastidious tastes of the ruling aristocracy. Even calicos from far-away Calcutta were esteemed fit for royal inaugural gowns. Silk was the last word in luxurious garb.

Silkworms had been reared in the Orient from ancient times. These moths had been domesticated for so many years they had become fully dependent on human aid for existence. They could crawl but could not fly. While silk brought fabulous prices on the world's market there were numerous reasons why its culture never succeeded in America. The handling of the creeping, crawling, ill-smelling worms was objectionable to anyone not accustomed from childhood to the task. Old people and young girls who were the ones employed in rearing silkworms in the Orient received the equivalent of a few cents a day for their labor. Such cheap help was not available in Virginia. Perhaps, the most serious objection of all was the lack of a suitable food supply for the worms. A silkworm from the time it hatches from the egg till it spins its cocoon devours a mass of green forage. Leaves of the mulberry tree are its favorite diet. In fact, without a supply of mulberry trees, successful silk culture is out of the question. Growing a crop of trees had to precede the rearing of worms. This took several years. Nevertheless, the directions of the London Company urged in season and out that the colonists should produce silk.

Governor Wyatt, in 1621, was instructed: "Not to permit any, but the council and heads of hundreds, to wear gold in the clothes, or to wear silk till they make it themselves." Nothing came from this order. In 1656, the agitation for silk became so intense, the General Assembly was forced to take action. First, an experienced silk grower, an Armenian by the name of George, was sent to the colony, and the General Assembly was ordered to give him four thousand pounds of tobacco to keep him in the country. Another law, passed that year, ordered that each planter set out ten mulberry trees for each one hundred acres of land he owned. These trees were to be fenced, to protect them from horses and cattle, and to be kept weeded. This law was repealed, two years later, as it "seems rather troublesome and burthensome than any waies advantageous to the country." The law was re-enacted in 1661 but given a three years delay as it was impossible to get mulberry trees. The General Assembly, in 1657, voted a bounty of 5000 pounds of tobacco to any planter producing 100 pounds of wound silk. There were no claimants. Two years later, the bounty was increased to 10,000 pounds of tobacco and the amount of silk required was reduced to 50 pounds. Again the results were negative. Then a bounty of fifty pounds of tobacco for each pound of silk was ordered. The effects from all these orders are summed up in an act of the General Assembly in 1663 which reads: