Smoke Statistics 207 



was levied on the divine herb. Of the quantities 

 then imported and consumed in England there is no 

 record. In i6ii James I. raised the duty at one 

 blow to 6s. lod. a pound — an advance of exactly 

 4,000 per cent. This severely checked the importa- 

 tion of tobacco. According to Stith it amounted in 

 that year to only 142,085 pounds from Virginia, or 

 one-sixth of the previous annual supply. The 

 deficiency from the colony was made up, however, by 

 supplies from Spain and Holland, for the Act raised 

 the duty on Virginian tobacco only. If these figures 

 be regarded as accurate, the annual consumption of 

 tobacco in England early in the seventeenth century 

 was nearly 1,000,000 pounds, or six ounces per head 

 of the population — a large amount, remembering that 

 smoking had been practised for only thirty years. 

 The equalization in 1624 of duties on tobaccos from 

 all countries revived the colonial trade. 



So rapidly did the demand for tobacco increase 

 that to prevent over-supply and to maintain the 

 standard quality of their tobacco the Assembly of 

 Virginia in 1638 restricted the output for the follow- 

 ing year to 1,500,000 pounds, and for the two 

 following years to 1,200,000 pounds per annum. 

 This was effectual in preventing the exportation of 

 poor, hastily-grown leaf. To profit by the demand for 

 tobacco it had been grown in the very streets of 

 Jamestown. 



Later, as Adam Smith states, the American 

 colonists restricted the cultivation of tobacco to 6,000 

 plants, supposed to yield 1,000 pounds of leaf, for 

 every negro employed between sixteen and sixty 



