ORGANIZATION OF THE FARM 



a thorough search was made for a staple which 

 would form the basis of a profitable system of 

 commercial agriculture. The production of silk 

 was attempted, but with little or no success. 

 Wine was looked to as a possible solution of the 

 problem, but this, too, led only to disappointment. 

 Tobacco was finally tried with success in the 

 Southern Colonies, and the South was launched 

 upon a career of her own. Tobacco had become 

 fashionable in England, and demanded a high 

 price. This was the opportunity of the com- 

 mercial farmers. They could produce tobacco 

 and send it by the cargo directly from the river 

 wharves on their own plantations to the markets 

 of London. This enabled them to order what- 

 ever they pleased from the merchants of Europe. 

 The labor problem arose. Free white men 

 could do better working for themselves in a coun- 

 try where rich soil "was to be had for taking up." 1 

 Contract labor was resorted to, but this did not 

 supply the demand. The African negro was 

 introduced to supply the tobacco plantations with 

 the desired number of laborers. And thus, it was 

 tobacco and slaves that made commercial agricul- 

 ture possible and profitable to the farmers of the 

 South and led to the development of the large 

 plantations of Virginia which were comparable 

 in size and dignity to some of the estates of the 



1 Hart's American History Told by Contemporaries, Vol. 

 II., P. 387. 



51 



