acres; in 1650, about six hundred and seventy-seven acres, and from 1666 to 1679 they averaged eight hundred and ninety acres. The slaves not only drove out the small landholders, but profoundly effected the economic and therefore political history of the whole country, and especially the South. And in this connection it can be shown that "cattle ranching" originated in Virginia rather than in Texas or the Far West, for the small planters, having failed in competition with their slave holding neighbors, retired to the foothills beyond the colony lands, taking their cattle with them, and in a few years had large herds grazing in the highlands, where they held annual "round ups" and marked and branded in genuine "cow-puncher" style.
Agricultural development moved slowly in Virginia, even if they did have the slaves, and in 1650 there were only one hundred and fifty plows in the whole colony, though the population was well over the fifteen thousand mark. Yet in 1631 the people were able to offer to sell corn in the Dutch settlements, and in New England tobacco was their principal export crop, and as early as 1640 they attempted to restrict the crop to 1,500,000 pounds in order to keep up the price. Cotton was well known to the Virginian, but did not assume any great importance with them until about 1750, at which time it became important to all the South, though its great commercial importance did not come about until the end of the Revolutionary War.
The raising of cattle reached large proportions in Virginia and the breeding of horses was taken up early in the history of the colony, but for a long time saddle horses were bred in preference to drafters.
