y of Virginia.

As the tobacco industry continued to expand into Piedmont Virginia,
there was a gradual decline in the Tidewater area. The increase in
population naturally caused a continual expansion of the tobacco
industry from its meager beginnings at Jamestown, but this was not the
major cause. The primary cause was the wasteful cultivation methods
practiced by the planters. To obtain the greatest yield from his land
the planter raised three or four consecutive crops of tobacco in one
field, then moved on to virgin fields. This practice was begun on a
relatively large scale as early as 1632 when a planting restriction of
1,500 plants per person was enacted, causing many planters to leave
their estates in search of better land in an effort to increase the
quality of their tobacco. As cheap virgin soil became scarce, planters
left their lands in Tidewater to take up fresh acreage in the Piedmont,
or they stayed at home and grew grain, some corn but mostly wheat.

We can only generalize as to when and how extensive this substitution
of wheat for tobacco may have been. There are those who believe that a
permanent shift away from tobacco began as early as 1720 on the Eastern
Shore of Virginia, while others state that it did not start until about
ten years later. As early as 1759 all of the best lands in Virginia
were reported to have been taken, and by the time of the Revolution the
supply was said to have been completely exhausted. In 1771 there were
rumors that at least one hundred of the principal Virginia planters had
given up the tobacco culture entirely and converted their plantations
to something more profitable. However, it is generally agreed that
tobacco was not abandoned extensively in Tidewater before the
Revolution.

The first appreciable decline came during the Revolution and this trend
continued until the tobacco was almost completely abandoned in
Tidewater in the nineteenth century. The rise in demand for foodstuffs
during the war caused planters to shift from tobacco in increasing
numbers. Many of them only reduced their tobacco crop at first, but
later abandoned it completely. After the Revolution wheat was
substituted for tobacco quite extensively, but owing to the expansion
into the Piedmont, Virginia's post-war tobacco production soon equalled
that of the prewar years. Tobacco was still grown in Tidewater Virginia
and some beyond the western boundary of the Piedmont, but by this time
Tidewater had