Note Back to Main Text — Chapter III

The demand for tobacco in England increasing each year, together with the high price paid for that from Virginia (3 s. per lb.), stimulated the planters to hazard all their time and labor upon one crop, neglecting the cultivation of the smaller grains, intent only upon curing "a good store of tobacco." The company of adventurers at length found it necessary to check the excessive planting of the weed, and by the consent of the "Generall Assemblie" restraining the plantations to "one hundred plants[15] ye headd, uppon each of wich plantes there are to bee left butt onely nyne leaves wich portions as neare as could be guessed, was generally conceaved would be agreable with the hundred waight you have allowed."