22 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



learned to consume, but which they were unable, themselves, 

 to produce. As it was unprofitable in those early days to ship 

 grain to London except in years when the price was abnormally 

 high, and as no staple was found which would bear shipment 

 to Europe, commercial agriculture was unable to play an im- 

 portant role in New England. 



In the South, the commercial farmer met with better success. 

 There, as in New England, 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 disappoint- 

 ment. Tobacco was tried with success in the southern colonies, 

 and the South was launched upon a career of her own. To- 

 bacco had become fashionable in England, and commanded a 

 high price. This was the opportunity of the commercial 

 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 country where rich soil was to be 

 had for the taking. Contract labor was resorted to, but this 

 did not satisfy 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 com- 

 mercial agriculture possible and profitable to the farmers of 

 the South and made possible the successful operation of the 

 large plantations of Virginia, which were comparable in size 

 and dignity to some of the estates of the country gentlemen of 

 England. The small farmers were, sooner or later, crowded 

 out of the fertile lands conveniently accessible to water trans- 

 portation in tidewater Virginia. Plantation agriculture based 

 on tobacco, rice, and cotton dominated the South, and it is 

 the conditions which have grown out of slavery and the planta- 

 tion system which provide the leading problems of Southern 

 agriculture to-day. 



