INTRODUCTORY 1 3 



While the continental colonies of Britain were a good 

 market for British manufacturers, they also produced agri- 

 cultural products which duplicated those of England. So 

 long, then, as England remained primarily an agricultural 

 country, and the older idea of empire persisted, it could 

 hardly be expected that Parliament would do ver>' much for 

 the encouragement of that industry in America. Despite 

 this condition, however, both the home government and 

 several of the colonial legislatures granted small sums of 

 money from time to time for the promotion of various agri- 

 cultural projects. For the most part, these were not likely 

 to compete with home products. As early as 1622, the Gov- 

 ernment of James I tried to encourage the growing of mul- 

 berry trees and the breeding of silkworms in Virginia; in 

 1642, the general court of Massachusetts authorized the 

 payment of premiums for the best types of sheep produced 

 in the colony. From 1633 to 1643 Parliament granted six 

 hundred thousand dollars to promote the growing of indigo 

 and other crops in Georgia. By the time of the Revolution, 

 England had become primarily a manufacturing country and 

 the more modern view that the colonies were to furnish a 

 market for home manufacture had become the dominant 

 one. Had not this political change occurred, it is more than 

 probable that agriculture would have received much greater 

 governmental aid, not only to supplement the mother 

 country's declining agricultural production, but to keep the 

 colonists diverted from manufacturing. 



During the ten years immediately follov/ing the establish- 

 ment of the Government under the Constitution, Washing- 

 ton was undoubtedly the most ardent and influential advo- 

 cate of governmental aid for the promotion of agriculture. 

 Even when the affairs of state seemed to be most pressing, 

 he found time to speak and write about it, both in an official 

 and a private capacity. In the course of his first annual 

 message to Congress, he referred to agriculture as a pursuit 

 which should be encouraged along with commerce and 

 manufactures." At this time, Washington seems to have 



>^ Messages and Papers of the Prcsulciits, vol. i, p. 66. 



