al farms. For their planting
he sought seeds and plants from various parts of the world. On the
college land he had some 10,000 grapevines set out, and sent for their
care foreign experts imported from the continent. To make sure that
private estates would not be devoted wholly to tobacco, as yet the
colony's only proven staple, he wrote into land patents a stipulation
that other staples would be given a trial.

To find the money for investment in the public lands was no easy task.
No common joint-stock fund could be raised in 1619, if only because the
company's plans depended chiefly upon the hope of inducing the
adventurers to invest in their own lands. It cannot be said how
successful were the renewed attempts to collect from delinquent
subscribers, but perhaps some help came from that source. Sandys
depended also, as had Smith before him, on the Virginia lottery,
perhaps more than upon any other source, for the lottery was terminated
early in 1621 by order of the privy council on grounds that included
the complaint of parliament that the lottery had become a public
nuisance. A very substantial help to Sir Edwin was the bishops' fund
for an Indian college and additional funds raised for the support of an
Indian school in the colony. The total ran to better than L2,000. It
had been decided in 1618, well before Sandys' election, that the money
from the bishops' fund would be invested in an estate to be known as
the College Land, and the precedent thus set was followed in disposing
of funds subsequently made available to the company for an Indian
school. In practical terms, these decisions meant that all mission
funds were used to send out tenants on the promise that a half-share of
the wine and other such commodities as they might produce would in time
provide a permanent endowment for the school and the college. The
decision reflects both the extraordinary poverty of the company and the
extraordinary confidence with which its leaders approached their new
ventures in Virginia.

By the spring of 1621, when the bulk of the college funds had been
expended and the lottery was terminated, Sir Edwin's financial
resources had become even more skimpy and uncertain. Some projects,
such as that for the settlement of Italian glass-workers who were to
manufacture pottery and beads for use in the Indian trade, could be
financed by subscriptions to a special joint-stock, but this device
offered no help in meeting general expenses.