Neat animals were kept near Jamestown in the early years, but they,
like the swine, had to gather their own living. A few were trained
for draft purposes. In new grounds where stumps and roots prevail,
oxen are more useful than horses. They do not get in a panic when
obstacles interfere. Then too, they can be slaughtered for beef when
they become too old for work. During the period under study, cattle,
in Virginia, often brought good prices. Many were purchased by the
New England colonists as it was cheaper to buy animals, in America,
than to go to the expense and loss of animals by shipping them across
the ocean.
There was a market for oxen in the Caribbean region, where they were
used for power, in the sugar mills.
In the first thirty years, some of the cattle went wild in the back
country, but many of the cows were kept in the vicinity of the
Jamestown headquarters. While not notable as dairy cows, they
produced enough milk so that Virginia gained a reputation among ship
crews for its excellent butter and cheese. In 1649 it was estimated
that there were twenty thousand cattle in the Colony.