oon tract after tract was cleaned of its native
_Nicotiana rustica_ as the settlers turned to the promising new species.
For a few years production was slow since English dealers were reluctant
to hazard too much on an uncertain commodity. In the 1615-16 period
Spain sent tobacco into London at the rate of twenty-five pounds for
each of the 2,300 pounds coming from Virginia. This was not to continue,
however, since English leaders were growing hostile to the successful
Spanish trade. Even before becoming aware of the Virginia product, they
were, with some success, encouraging production in England itself.

Despite domestic tobacco, however, and the favor of Spanish leaf, the
Virginia product, cheaper than the Spanish, began to win friendly users
in London and in the other cities. To meet the demand and to produce
profits, the young colony all but abandoned other industries and even
its staples, to the concern of the Company, for the cultivation of "the
weed." Soon governors were taking measures to restrict planting in the
interest of producing foodstuffs and in defending themselves. Captain
Samuel Argall, who came to Jamestown in 1617, is said to have found "but
five or six houses, the church downe, the palizado's broken, the bridge
in pieces, the well of fresh water spoiled; the store-house ... used for
the church; the marketplace, and streets, and all other spare places
planted with tobacco; the salvages as frequent in their homes as
themselves, whereby they were become expert in our armes ... the Colonie
dispersed all about planting Tobacco." In 1617 Virginia exported some
20,000 pounds, in 1619 this had doubled and in 1629, only a decade and a
half after the first shipment, the total reached 1,500,000 pounds.

Thus, a new trade and industry were born in the Colony. Tobacco proved
to be the economic salvation of Virginia, and provided a means that
brought land into use and made slavery profitable. Tobacco and slavery
together led to the development of important characteristics of the
whole social, political, and economic structure of the Old South. One of
the immediate effects of tobacco culture in Virginia was the impetus it
gave to the expansion of the area of settlement and to the number of
settlers coming to Virginia.

YEARDLEY AND ARGALL

When Dale departed Virginia in May, 1616 there was more security,
stability, good management, deeper understanding of the new land, and a
keener knowledge of survival than