Virginia by 1671— the small tobacco planters left the 

 tidewater for the adjacent west and south. This expan- 

 sion of the colony's boundaries was long to continue. 



Tobacco was soil-draining then, for such practices as 

 crop rotation and the scientific use of fertilizers lay far 

 in the future. This resulted in the condition— most con- 

 spicuous in the 18th century— of a large, scattered, shift- 

 ing class of small planters in Virginia and a small, landed 

 tobacco aristocracy. 



Large, self-supporting estates had enough acreage to 

 permit some fields to lie fallow while others produced 

 tobacco. These estates ranged down in size from the 

 estimated 300,000 acres owned by Robert ("King") 

 Carter to holdings of 20,000 to 30,000 acres. Included 

 in the group of large plantations was that of William 

 Byrd of Westover, with 179,000 acres. Byrd, an expres- 

 sive enthusiast about tobacco, made frequent contribu- 

 tions to the literature of the plant he described as "that 

 bewitching vegetable." 



The extent of acreage, however, did not necessarily 

 control quality. The finest "sweet-scented" tobacco came 

 from the small plantation of Edward Digges, a mid-17th 

 century settler. His crops were grown on the gray, sandy 

 soil near the York River close to Yorktown. The skills of 

 a succession of cropmasters and the ideal "starved" soil 

 resulted in the lightest, mildest leaf grown in Virginia. 

 Casks in which this tobacco were shipped had a distinc- 

 tive "E.D." stamp. For many years after his death, leaf 

 from Digges' original farm, a product always referred to 

 as "E Dees," brought the highest prices in the English 

 market. 



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