52 INCREASE OF TOBACCO GROWING. 
it, or cut off the ground leaves, weed it, hill it; and when 
ripe, they cut it down about six or eight leaves on a stalk,. 
which they carry into airy tobacco houses, after it is withered 
a little in the sun, there it is hung to dry on sticks, as paper 
at the paper-mills; when it is in proper case, (as they call it) 
and the air neither too moist, nor too dry, they strike it, or 
- take it down, then cover it up in bulk, or a great heap, where 
it lies till they have leisure or occasion to strip it (that is pull 
the leaves from the stalk) or stem it (that is to take out the 
great fibres) and tie it up in hands, or streight lay it; and so 
by degrees prize or press it with proper engines into great 
Hogsheads, containing from about six to eleven hundred 
pounds; fourof which Hogsheads make a tun by dimention, 
not by weight; then it is ready for sale or shipping. 
There are two sorts of tobacco, viz., Oroonoko the stronger, 
and sweet-scented the milder; the first with a sharper leaf 
like a Fox’s ear, and the other rounder and with finer fibres: 
But each of these are varied into several sorts; much as 
Apples and Pears are; and I have been informed by the 
Indian traders, that the Inland Indians have sorts of tobacco 
much differing from any planted or used by the Europeans. 
The Indian Corn is planted in hills and weeded much as 
tobacco. This grain is of great increase and most general 
use; for with this is made good bread, cakes, mush, and 
hommony for the negroes, which with good pork and potatoes 
(red and white, very nice and different from ours) with other 
roots and pulse, are their general food.” 
The cultivation of tobacco increased with the growth of 
the colony and the increase of price which at this time was 
sufficient to induce most of the planters to neglect the cul- 
ture of Corn and Wheat, devoting their time to growing 
their “darling tobacco.” The first: thirty years after the 
colonization of Virginia by the English, the colony made but 
little progress owing in part to private factions and Indian 
wars. The horrid massacres by the Indians threatened the 
extermination of the colony, and for a time the plantations 
were neglected and even tobacco became more of an article 
of import than of export, which is substantiated by an early 
writer of the colony who says:—“A vast quantity of 
tobacco is consumed in the country in smoking, chewing, and 
snuff.” Frequent complaints were made by the colony of 
want of strength and danger of imminent famine, owing in 
