onstables in
each district to enforce the law forbidding the planters to harvest
suckers. Anyone found tending suckers after the last of July was to be
heavily penalized. These two measures seem to have produced the desired
effects; in 1736 tobacco sold for fifteen shillings per hundred pounds.

Unlike Queen Anne's War, King George's War seemed to stimulate tobacco
prices and they remained relatively good for a number of years after
the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. During the early 1750's merchants
paid up to twenty shillings per hundred pounds, even though Virginia
had been exporting from 38,000,000 to 53,000,000 pounds annually.
During the French and Indian War the belligerents agreed to continue
the tobacco trade, but in spite of this arrangement there were unusual
price fluctuations owing primarily to inflation and occasional poor
crops. In 1755 a period of inflation was created when Virginia resorted
to the printing press for currency. At the same time war operations
hampered production and only about one-half of the usual annual crop
was produced, and tobacco prices rose to twenty shillings per hundred
weight. During the years of peace just prior to the American
Revolution, tobacco averaged about three pence per pound and never fell
below two pence. With the outbreak of hostilities the General Assembly
prohibited the exportation of tobacco to the British Empire.

Frequent overproduction and the numerous wars during the eighteenth
century seem to have caused more violent price fluctuations than those
of the previous century. Although the American colonies did not
participate in all of the wars involving England, all of them had their
effects upon the colonies. Virginia depended primarily upon England to
transport her tobacco crop and during the war years there was a
frequent shortage of ships used for the tobacco trade. As this cut off
the tobacco supply to the foreign markets, many of them began to grow
their supply of tobacco.

The tobacco crops were small almost every year during the Revolution.
Owing to the increase in the demand for foodstuffs many of the planters
switched from tobacco to wheat. During the first year of the war
tobacco exports dropped from 55,000,000 to 14,500,000 pounds. It has
been said that for the entire period 1776-1782 Virginia's exports were
less than her exports of a single year before the Revolution. Wartime
prices and inflation caused tobacco prices to increase from eighteen