would soon be able to compete successfully with foreign merchants in supplying the English people with the articles which they were now compelled to purchase abroad.[1] Dale had established a vineyard at Henrico not long after the foundation of that settlement, covering an area of three acres, in which he planted the vines of the native grape for the purpose of testing their adaptability to the production of wines that could be substituted for those of France and Spain. Silk-worms were sent over in the winter of 1614, and in a few months grew to an extraordinary size. To such an extent did they flourish on the mulberry leaf in Virginia, that it was confidently expected that silk-making would become one of the most important industries of the Colony. Captain Martin about the same time tried experiments with the native silk-grass, transplanting many of the wild plants to a garden of his own, having been encouraged to do this by the excellence of the product obtained from them. He proposed to make this commodity one of the exports of Virginia.[2]
Great as were the agricultural improvements in the Colony during the administration of Dale, no plough as yet seems to have been brought into its plantations. None were in use there. Hamor, in 1614, indulged the hope that in the following year three or four ploughs would be set to work, there being now a sufficient number
- ↑ Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London, vol. I, p. 65. Dale to Winwood, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 783. When Dale returned to England in 1616, he carried over as the cargo of his ship, “tobacco, sasafrix, pych, potashes, sturgyon & cavyarge and other such lyk Commodytyes as yet that Countrye” yielded. Ibid., p. 783.
- ↑ Ralph Hamor’s True Discourse, p. 35. The silk-worms were brought over by Captain Adams in the ship Elizabeth, which arrived in Virginia in the winter of 1613-14.
