34 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
proposed for the Indians, and twelve thousand for the 
Company.” And each newly created office in the Col¬ 
ony had a similar reservation made to support it, great 
or little, according to its importance. The Governor 
was allowed one hundred tenants, and from this maxi¬ 
mum figure the number was scaled down for the other 
officials, proportionate to the holdings of each. Under 
this arrangement provision was made for the support 
of each office, with a proper number of servants, and 
in a manner to maintain its dignity. 
Tobacco was from the very first the obsession of 
every man of them, and their initial clearings were ever 
being enlarged and pressed further back upon the wil¬ 
derness, in order to secure the rich virgin soil necessary 
for its growth. For the demand of the rest of the 
world for this one plant alone, promised certain riches 
almost equal to the fabled treasures which had led the 
Spaniard Narvaez and his hapless followers to their 
deaths, nearly a century before. 
Supposed to be a native of South America, Nicotiana 
Tabacum was under aborginal cultivation for ages be¬ 
fore a white man ever set foot on Western shores; and 
like the corn, its origin in the wild state is, as a matter 
of fact, one of the mysteries of a lost past. A Spanish 
doctor is credited with taking the first tobacco to Eu¬ 
rope when he went home, from the West Indies prob¬ 
ably, somewhere about 1558; but its use as the Indians 
