The exclusion of the Indians from the valley of the lower James, which was complete almost as early as 1627, by making them more dependent on the chase, led to the destruction of the numerous droves of hogs that at one time roamed in the forests.[1] So scarce had those running wild become by 1631, that a law was passed prohibiting any one from killing them beyond the boundaries of his own plantation, but the strictness of this provision was modified in the instance of a person who could show that he had recently destroyed a wolf.[2] To such a person alone was the right to kill a wild hog allowed, and it was allowed to him only on account of the great importance of reducing the number of wolves in the ranges of the settlements, where they inflicted great damage upon every kind of live stock. The planters, however, still had a great abundance of tame swine. No householder at this period was so sunk in poverty as not to possess a few of these animals.[3]
Cattle of all kinds in Virginia were now supposed to number from two to five thousand.[4] The price of an ox in the Colony at this time was three hundred shillings, a difference of many shillings as compared with the lower price of the same animal in England.[5] The herd of Governor Yeardley during his last administration was composed of twenty-four head, each cow or ox, since so large a herd must have included individuals of both sexes, being worth fifteen pounds.[6] In England at this
- ↑ Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 885. 2 Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 190.
- ↑ Three hundred and seventy-five dollars for fully grown horned cattle, for such was approximately the purchasing power of fifteen pounds sterling in the early part of the seventeenth century, was an extraordinary price, only to be explained by the comparative scarcity of these beasts, and the usefulness
- ↑ Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 885.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 887.
- ↑ Rogers’ History of Agriculture and Prices in England, vol. V, p. 349.
- ↑ Certificate of Thomas Gibbes and Samuel Wrote, British State
