72 LARGE PLANTATIONS. 
employ their care and time about anything that may make them 
lessen their crop of tobacco. So that though they are apt to 
learn, yet they are fond of and will follow their own ways, 
humors and ‘notions, being not easily brought to new 
projects and schemes; so that I question if they would have 
been improved upon by the Mississippi or South sea, or any 
other such monstrous bubbles. The common planters lead- 
ing easy lives without much labor, or any manly exercise, 
except horse-racing, nor diversion, except cock-fighting, in 
which some greatly delight. 
“This easy way of living, and the heat of the summer. 
makes some very lazy, who are then said to be climate-struck 
They are such lovers of riding, that almost every ordinary 
person keeps a horse; and I have known some spend the 
morning in ranging several miles in the woods to find and 
catch their horses to ride only two or three miles to the Church, 
to the Court-House or to a Horse-Race, where they generally 
appoint to meet upon business ; and are more certain of finding 
those that they want to speak or deal with, than at their 
home. No people can entertain their friends with better cheer 
and welcome; and stranger and traveler is here treated in the 
most free, plentiful, and hospitable manner; so that a few 
Inns or Ordinaries on the road are sufficient.” 
This is no doubt a correct picture of the early planters of 
Virginia. Many of them became the owners of large plant- 
ations and all those who were successful growers of tobacco 
became wealthy in proportion to the quality of leaf produced. 
The merchants, factors or store-keepers bought up the 
tobacco of the planters paying in goods or “current Spanish 
money, or with sterling bills payable in Great Britain.” At 
first the cultivation of tobacco by the colony was confined to 
Jamestown and the immediate vicinity, but as the colony 
increased and the country became more densely populated, 
plantations were laid out in the various counties and a large 
quantity was produced some ways from the great center 
Jamestown ; accordingly various methods were adopted to 
get the tobacco to market, some of which was sent by boats 
or canoes down the rivers, while some was conveyed in carts 
and wagons while another method was by rolling in hoops. 
Tatham in his interesting work on tobacco, gives the fol- 
lowing description of the method: | 
