The Rev. Hugh Jones came to Virginia in 1717 and returned to England in 1722. In 1724, he wrote a small book, " The Present State of Virginia ". It is considered that he was writing of events that occurred no later than 1722. He was at Williamsburg associated with the College of William and Mary, and he was a friend of Spotswood. On some occasions he goes overboard in his praise of Spotswood.
Suppose that we want to go into the business of raising tobacco. Here is how to go about it.
"When a tract of land is seated, they clear it by felling the trees about a yard from the ground, lest they should shoot up again. What they have occasion for they carry off, and burn the rest, or let it lie and rot upon the ground. The land between the logs and stumps they hoe up, planting tobacco there in the spring, inclosing it with a slight fence of cleft rails. This will last for tobacco for some years, if the land is good, as it is where fine timber, or grape vines grow.
"Land when tired is forced to bear tobacco by penning their cattle upon it; but cowpen tobacco tastes strong, and that planted in wet marshy land is called nonburning tobacco, which smoaks in the pipe like leather, unless it be of a good age. When land is tired of tobacco, it will bear Indian corn, or English wheat, or any other European grain or seed, with wonderful increase.
"Tobacco and Indian corn are planted in hills as hops, and secured by worm fences, which are made of rails supporting one another very firmly in a particular manner. Tobacco requires a great deal of skill and trouble in the right management of it. They raise the plants in beds, as we do cabbage plants; which they transplant and replant upon occasion after a shower of rain, which they call a season.
"When it is grown up they top it, or nip off the head, succour it, or cut off the ground leaves, weed it, hill it; and when ripe, they cut it down about six or eight leaves up a stalk, which they carry into airy tobacco houses; after it is withered a little in the sun, there it is hung to dry on sticks, as paper at the paper-mills; when it is in proper case, (as they call it) and the air neither too moist, nor too dry, they strike it, or take it down, then cover it up in bulk, or a great heap, where it lies till they have leisure or occasion to stem it (that is pull the leaves from the stalk) or strip it (that is take out the great fibers) and tie it up in hands, or streight lay it; and so by degrees prize or press it with proper engines into great hogsheads, containing from about six to eleven hundred pounds; four of which hogsheads make a tun, by dimension, not by weight; then it is ready for sale or shipping.
"There are two sorts of tobacco, viz. Oroonoko the stronger, and sweetscented the milder; the first with a sharper leaf like a fox's ear, and the other rounder and with finer fibres; but each of these are varied into several sorts, much as apples and pears are; and I have been informed by the Indian traders, that the inland Indians have sorts of tobacco much differing from any planted or used by the Europeans."
When our Germanna ancestors came to Virginia, it was essential to learn how to do this to have a cash income. I made the observation here that, on the average, each militia man would have grown two hogsheads of tobacco. I didn't mean to imply that each man would have grown tobacco; the quotation was only an average. From the size of the hogshead above, this is a lot of tobacco.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.