As already noted, the initial attempts of the colonists to grow the
grains with which they had been accustomed in England came to naught.
They were familiar with wheat, rye, barley and oats. To make
satisfactory yields, these grains had to be broadcasted on well
prepared seed beds. Newly cleared forests left the soil full of
stumps and roots. The wooden plows of those days were useless on
these newly cleared lands. Preparation of the soil, for tobacco or
maize, could be accomplished with a hand hoe or shovel. These plants
required space in which to develop their full growth. A tobacco plant
could be set or a hill of corn planted wherever a little loose dirt
could be found. Some English grains were seeded in the cleared land
near Hampton and Newport News but these old fields, abandoned by the
Indians, were also near to exhaustion. An "indifferent crop" was
reported.
In 1627, Abraham Piersey had 200 acres each in wheat and barley.
From these crops he was able to furnish food daily to sixty persons.
How much of this seeding was on land that had been abandoned for
tobacco, or was old Indian fields, is not stated. When DeVries
visited Virginia in 1643, he found the planters putting down, in
English grain, lands which had been exhausted by successive crops of
tobacco. The General Assembly had ruled in 1639, that corn (probably
wheat and maize) could be exported whenever the price fell below
twelve shillings a bushel. Large exports of this valuable cereal were
then being made to the near-by colonies of Maryland, Manhattan,
Carolina and the West Indies.
It was estimated by Edward Williams, in 1650, that two able-bodied
laborers could seed sixty acres in wheat in the course of one season
and reap the grain when it was ripe. The yield from such an area had
a market value of four hundred and eighty pounds sterling. It was
reported that these fields which no longer produced the best grades
of tobacco were better for wheat than newly cleared land. As these
exhausted fields could be rented or purchased at moderate cost
compared with prime tobacco new ground, many poorly financed
colonists were able to get a start towards prosperity without
resorting to the almost universal practice of growing tobacco.