ferment in the sun. Rolfe remarked, a few years after his 

 first harvest, that his fellow settlers were uncertain how 

 best to cure tobacco. In 1618 Governor Samuel Argall 

 wrote to the Virginia Company of London that "Master 

 (Thomas) Lambert has found out that Tobacco cures 

 better on lines than in heaps and ( he ) desires that lines 

 be sent." The resulting open-air and sun-curing of dark 

 tobacco produced a milder-flavored leaf and was re- 

 tained for many years. The dark air-cured (sun-cured) 

 and aromatic fire-cured tobaccos of Virginia today are 

 closest to the colonial type first grown at Jamestown. The 

 Indians of Virginia had used a primitive method of fire- 

 curing their tobacco. 



roduction is expanded 



London importers soon made it clear that they would 

 buy as much Virginia leaf as could then be produced. 

 In consequence the colonists devoted themselves to the 

 profitable new enterprise. The new industry had ac- 

 quired the characteristics of a gold rush. Captain John 

 Smith commented on the state in which he found the 

 colony in 1617: 



. . . but five or six houses, the church down, the 

 palisades broken, the bridge in pieces, the mar- 

 ketplace and streets and all other spare places 

 planted with tobacco, the colony dispersed all 

 about, planting tobacco. 



That year Virginia planters exported about 20,000 

 pounds of leaf to the motherland. Within a dozen years 

 or so exports were up to 1.5 million pounds. Thereafter, 



12 



