Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 Part 1

Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699.

by Lyman Carrier.

Various events in the latter years of the sixteenth century did much to shape the future destiny of the English nation. With the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588, England rose from a minor position in world affairs to one of major importance. One of the first changes was reflected in her att.i.tude towards trade and commerce. England was no longer penned up on her "tight little isle,"

and her ships could sail the high seas in comparative safety.

Expansion of her foreign trade seemed the only answer to her ambitions, but foreign trade required a two way transfer of products.

In order to sell goods, it was necessary to buy in exchange. World commerce had already become well stabilized among friendly nations making it difficult for outside businessmen to share in these established commitments. So England was soon to direct her attentions toward America.

It was with eyes focused on future trade that the businessmen who composed the London Company contributed the huge sums that were required to finance the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.

Agriculture was not of prime importance. At that time England was self-sufficient so far as the production of grains and livestock was concerned. Ordinary farm products would not pay the cost of transportation across the ocean. Of course, it was expected that the colonists would eventually produce their own food stuffs; however, until that stage of development occurred it was expected that the London Company would supply the needs of the colony direct from England.

The men of the first expedition were not farmers and took little interest in farming. A good many came, hoping to share in riches, that their imagination had created. Fantastic tales about the Americas had been circulated in Europe during the century following their discovery. The most authentic of these foreign travel journals had been translated into English and published around the turn of the sixteenth century. Reports also of rich prizes, laden with gold, captured on the Spanish Main by English privateers, had inflamed the English mind. If the Spaniards could find such vast treasures in America, why should not the English do the same?

Then too, as the first colony of Virginia lay between 34 and 41 degrees north-lat.i.tude, the same approximately as Italy and Spain, it was expected that the much desired warm weather products enjoyed by the Mediterranean people, such as oranges, lemons, sugar, and spices could be produced equally as well in America. Jamestown eventually contributed great financial benefits to the Mother Country from agricultural accomplishments. These benefits could not in 1607 be visualized. To understand the vicissitudes which beset the colonists in the early years of the settlement, one should be familiar with the agricultural practices of both the Old World and the New, for it was by combining the farming wisdom of both sides of the Atlantic into a new agriculture, that the colony became firmly established.

OLD WORLD AGRICULTURE

European agriculture reached a high degree of efficiency two thousand years ago in the scrub-forest region around the Mediterranean Sea. To the Greeks that part of the world alone was considered fit for habitation by human beings. Farming by the Romans was regarded as a highly respectable and honorable occupation. Some of their most learned scholars wrote books on husbandry. The Romans have given us by far the most complete and satisfactory accounts of their agriculture of any ancient people. During the "Revival of Learning,"

these old masterpieces were rediscovered, const.i.tuting the princ.i.p.al agricultural literature of Europe, prior to the eighteenth century.

Most of the early English books on husbandry were mere translations of the Roman books on that subject, with a few original observations added.

AGRICULTURE IN ENGLAND

The northern or colder parts of Europe were many centuries behind the Mediterranean nations in agricultural achievement. At the time of the discovery of America, England and most of the nations of Europe were controlled by the feudal system. The arable land was owned in large estates or manors by feudal barons, the actual labor on the farms being performed by serfs. These farm laborers belonged to the land and were exchanged with it when there was a change in ownership of the real estate. Farming was looked upon as necessary to existence, but not as a business enterprise. Since trade and transportation in farm products were extremely limited, consumption took place near the fields of production. It was more economical for a baron to move his family and retinue of servants to different parts of his domain than it was to transport the food stuffs to one central habitation. The possibility of serfs becoming land owners was too remote for consideration.

CONTINENTAL INFLUENCES

Farming practices in England before the eighteenth century were largely adaptations from other European countries. The Romans, about the beginning of the Christian era, took their husbandry to the British Isles. The Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century, brought in from the mainland their farm practices. Likewise the Normans in the eleventh century brought over their methods of tillage. Owing to the close proximity to France, Flanders and Holland, agricultural innovations in those countries were not long in gaining attention and trial by the British farmers. The long hours of sunlight during short summers, with the opposite conditions prevailing in the winters, have influenced the development of plant species in all northern lat.i.tudes. Such seasonal conditions have also made necessary a distinct type of farming. Many crops of the Mediterranean region do not survive in north European countries. People in the colder regions also require a different diet than do those living in the warmer climates. By the seventeenth century an agriculture adapted to northern Europe had come into general practice. The implements used in farm work were, by modern standards, very crude and were customarily made by the local smith. A few hoes and mattocks, scythes, reaping hooks, spades and wooden plows with iron points and shares complete the list. The entire supply of tools for an average sized farm could have been hauled in one load on one of their two-wheeled carts.

CROPS GROWN

The chief grains of northern Europe were wheat, rye, oats, barley, and buckwheat. The common gra.s.ses, clover and turnips, were raised for forage. It should be noted that all of these crops were broad-cast seeded, none required row planting or intertillage.

A few American products had been brought to England prior to the settlement at Jamestown. They apparently came by the way of Asia.

Maize was first called Turkey wheat. The great American bird was named Turkey. Thomas Tusser in 1573 in his "Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie" enumerates the meats suitable for a Christmas dinner with the following verse:

"Beef, mutton and pork.

Shred pies of the best Pig, veal, goose and capon And Turkey well drest."

No earlier mention of anything strictly American in English literature has come to light.

INDIAN AGRICULTURE

Let us turn now and take a look at the farming accomplishments of the American Indians. The oft repeated statement that the Indians lived mainly by hunting and fishing so far as it pertains to the Virginia tribes is far from the truth.

The bitter struggles between the white men and the Indians during the colonial period created animosities and prejudices which have overshadowed the beneficial contributions the red men have made to civilization. As plant breeders, the American Indians rank with the most skillful of the world. Take for instance, maize or Indian corn.

There is nothing closely comparable to it known to botanists. It has been domesticated so long that its wild prototype is unknown. Maize, now, could not exist anywhere in the world without the aid of man.

The Indians had all the varieties that are now known, such as dent, flint, sweet, early, late, pop, and other special sorts which are no longer grown. They had developed varieties that matured all the way from the tropics to the St. Lawrence River in Canada.

The Indians also practiced a mixed culture such as corn, beans, and squashes all in the same hill; they had created a large number of varieties of beans (_Phaseolus genus_): the white, red, black, and spotted sorts now so commonly grown, and many others.

INDIAN TILLAGE

The Indians were able to clear fields, of several hundred acres in extent, without the aid of metal tools, using fire as their chief agent. Trees, too large to be cut with their stone hatchets, were killed either by building a fire at the base or by girdling the bark.

The trees in dying furnished fire wood for domestic use. Planting began among the dead trees wherever enough loose dirt could be sc.r.a.ped together to make a hill for seeding. In the course of time the fields became entirely free from forest growth. These fields were cropped in most cases until their fertility was exhausted and then abandoned. If there was no more available fertile land in the vicinity, the tribe moved to a new location. The early white settlers on the Atlantic Coast found many of these abandoned clearings.

Because of their unproductiveness they were called "poisoned fields."

The Indians had only the crudest sorts of farming tools. Near the coast, sea sh.e.l.ls were the most efficient implements they possessed.

The fresh-water clam-sh.e.l.ls came next in usefulness. Where these natural sc.r.a.pers were not available, pointed sticks, and pieces of flat rock served the purpose. One writer describing the Illinois Indians' method of farming says:

This tillage consists in breaking up just the surface of the earth with a sort of wooden instrument, like a little pickaxe, which they make by splitting the end of a thick piece of wood, that serves for a handle, and putting another piece of wood, sharp pointed at one end into the slit. This instrument serves them instead of a hoe or spade, for they have no iron tools.

INDIAN VS. OLD WORLD CULTURE

Attention has been called to the fact that all of the field crops of Great Britain, at the time of the English settlements in America, were broad-cast seeded. The Indians had developed a far different cultural treatment for their crops. In their most common method, that of hill planting, the soil in the intervening s.p.a.ces was not broken.

The hills, two to four feet apart, were from 12 to 20 or more inches in diameter. The soil in these hills was all that was stirred or loosened. All weeds, both in the hills and the intervals between them, were kept cut or pulled out. Four to six grains of maize and two or three beans were seeded in each hill, separately s.p.a.ced.

Squashes and pumpkins were sometimes seeded with the corn and beans.

This mixed seeding is a unique feature of American agriculture.

The Indians were fortunate in not having to contend with many of the weeds, insects and plant-diseases which now plague farmers and gardeners. Practically all of these pests, some of quite recent date, are of Old World origin and have been introduced by white men, into America.

Birds and small animals gave the Indians more concern than all their other pests combined. It was customary to build in their gardens small watch-houses in which the young folks took turns in staying to scare away crows and other troublesome birds.

The same hills were used year after year and became in time quite sizable mounds, remains of which have persisted, in some localities, until modern times. In the southwestern parts of Michigan, the early settlers found large tracts of ridged land, evidently relics of Indian agriculture. It is now thought that these areas were corn fields in which the seeding was made in continuous rows instead of hills. A French artist in Florida in 1564 pictured the Indians seeding their crops in rows.

After a few years of failure in their attempts to grow American crops, the English colonists adopted the Indian method of seeding, but usually neglected the weeding, and were subjected to ridicule for their shiftlessness by the painstaking squaws. In using work-animals for cultivating corn, it was found advantageous to destroy the weeds by stirring the ground in the intervening s.p.a.ces.

THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN

On the 26th day of April, 1607, three small ships carrying 105 colonists pa.s.sed between Cape Charles and Cape Henry into Chesapeake Bay for the purpose of founding a colony in the land called Virginia.

The voyagers took seventeen days to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of that region for such an undertaking.

First consideration for selecting the site was its possibilities for defense against a foreign foe, especially the Spaniards, in Florida and the West Indies. This was no idle fear. Spain and England had for many years been in conflict. Moreover, Spain claimed all of the Americas by the right of discovery.

The second most important thing for consideration was adequate harbor facilities. In both of these particulars, the site selected about thirty miles up the James River left little to be desired. The Jamestown peninsula jutted out into the river far enough to give an un.o.bstructed view for several miles. The character of the land on either side of the river would have made difficult any attempt at an overland attack.

The James was sufficiently deep to take care of any ocean going vessels of that time. The heavily forested surroundings furnished protection from violent storms. The channel ran near the sh.o.r.e. Ships could be moored by cables to trees on the land.

From the standpoint of raising food stuffs, the colonists could hardly have picked a more unfavorable situation. The peninsula was connected with the sh.o.r.e to the north by a narrow neck of land "thirty yards over." As this narrow strip of land was usually flooded during times of high water, the peninsula was for most purposes an island by which designation it is generally known.