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:

George, the Armenian, having proved the making of ten pounds of
wound silk, it is ordered there be paid him for his
encouragement in the levy according to act.

It is assumed that George received 500 pounds of tobacco. What became
of the silk is not recorded. A few years later the price per pound of
wound silk was fixed by the General Assembly at 20 shillings or two
hundred pounds of tobacco.

HEMP AND FLAX

Two plants, the culture of which was strongly urged by the English
authorities, were hemp and flax. In this case, greater success was
realized than occurred with most of the demands that came from across
the ocean. It had been ordered in 1658, by the General Assembly:
"That what person or persons, soever, shall at any time hereafter
make, in this colonie, so much silke, flax, hopps or any other staple
commodities (except tobacco) as is worth two hundred pounds sterling,
or English wheate to the value of five hundred pounds stirling in one
yeare, and exporte the same or cause the same to be exported, or
shall first make two tunne of wine raized out of a vineyard made in
this collonie, shall have given him by this country, for an
encouragement, ten thousand pounds of Virginia tobacco."

Apparently no one qualified for the bounty on flax for, in 1661,
provision was made for importing some flax seed from England. No
price was fixed, in 1666, on "flax by reason of the uncertainty of
the quality." In 1682, bounties were offered: "For every peck of flax
seeds, four and twentie pounds of tobacco, and for every peck of hemp
seed twenty pounds of tobacco." Bounties were also offered for hemp
and flax woven into cloth. It was also ordered that every tithable
person should produce one pound of dressed hemp and one pound of
dressed flax or two pounds of either annually. From that time on
considerable hemp and flax were raised in Virginia, but most of the
crop was used at home. Linen cloth was highly prized. There was also
a demand for cordage made of hem