Expansion and new developments over a period of years brought about a
fantastic increase in tobacco production. When its production was
confined to the Tidewater area, Virginia produced about 40,000,000
pounds annually; by 1800 this amount had doubled. Virginia remained the
leading producer of tobacco in the United States until the War Between
the States, when she was replaced by Kentucky, owing to the devastating
effects of the war in the Old Dominion.
In the South the nature of the crop usually determines the number of
acres that one person can cultivate successfully. Only a small number
of acres of tobacco can be cultivated properly owing to its high value
of yield per acre and the careful supervision required. The production
of tobacco per acre does not appear to have changed very much in the
long period from about 1650 to 1800, when 1,000 pounds per acre was
considered a good yield. However, the amount that one man could produce
increased during this period as the planters became more experienced
and the plow and other implements came to be used more extensively. It
has been estimated that in 1624 one man could properly cultivate and
harvest only about one-half of an acre of tobacco, or about 400 pounds.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the average product of one
man was from 1,500 to 2,000 pounds or in terms of acreage, from one and
a half to two acres, plus six or seven barrels of corn. Around 1775 one
man produced from 2,000 to 2,500 pounds of tobacco besides provisions.
Thus it appears that during most of the Colonial period one man could
cultivate one and a half to two acres of tobacco, plus provisions; but
by the end of this period he had increased the productiveness of his
own labor.