The Monticellonian., 1899-03-17

band of Pocahontas) Rolfe is con nected with the early history of Virginia. In the spring of 1912, the fifth year of the colony, he performed an action which, If we were to judge it by its consequence only, we might pronounce the most important deed ever done in colonial Virginia. Being an old smoker. he had the curiosity to know whether white men could raise good tobacco in Virginia; and, accordingly, he planted some tobacco seed at Jamestown. It grew well during the summer, and when the leaves were ripe, he cured them as best he could; for not q person in the colony was ac- quainted with the proper process. When the leaves were dry, he tried them in his pipe, and pro nounced the tobacco excellent. His friend, Ralph Hamor, seere- tary of the colony, tried it, and finding 1t very much to his taste, planted some seeds in his garden in the following spring. Mr. Hamor, in hls tract upon Virgin ia, published in 1913, gave Virgin ia tobacco a strong endorsement.
 ''I dare affirm, he wrote, "that no country under the sun can or doth afford more pleasant. sweet and strong tobacco than I have tasted there, even of my own planting, which, howsoever, being the first year of trial thereof, we had not the knowledge to cure and make up; yet are there some men resident there. out of the last years well-observed experience. which both know, and, l doubt not, will make and return such to- bacco this year (I6I5) that even England shall acknowledge the goodness thereof. "
 He further says, when urging emigrants to go to Virginia, that any man in the colony could earn his clothes by raising tobacco clothes having to be bought in England with money.
 The Secretary's prediction prov ed correct. English smokers so we'll appreciated the tobacco of Virginia that the price of the arti- ele was 5 to 5 shillings pound.
 A colonist needed to send only very few pounnds of tobacco home to get an excellent suit of clothes. Naturally enough, every one was eager to plant tobacco :; and We read of tobacco growing luxuriantly in the very streets and public places of Jamestown. Nothing could "draw the people eff, says an old historian, from their greedy and immoderate pur- suit of tobacco, ; although a hun and fifty people were sent out from England to set up three iron works, and an attempt was made to introduce the culture of hemp, flax and silk. Tobacco became and for two centuries remained, the staple product of Virginia. For century and more, it served in part as currency of the colony. We read of men bequeathing hun dreds of pounds of tobacco for en- dowing d college or converting the heathen. Clergymen were paid salaries of so many thousand pounds of tobacco per annum. Taxes, debts and rents were paid in tobacco.
 No colony can flourish, if, in deed, it can exist, unless it pro duces something which can be sold for money in other and older countries; since 1t cannot. for ma ny years manufacture the imple- ments, utensils, fabrics and appar- el, without which it must either perish, or lapse into barbarism Virginia now had such a commod- ity; and from thls time forward it could make d return to the compa- ny at home. and buy with its own produce indispensable articles manufactured in England. Such were the consequences of John Rolfe's planting of tobacco seed in the spring of 1912.
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