e tract _Nova Britannia_ of 1609, written by Robert Johnson as a part
of the promotional campaign of the London Company, outlined these major
provisions concerning land and included the optimistic prediction that
each share of L12 10s. would be worth 500 acres at least. But an
attempt fourteen years later by Captain Martin to justify a patent
based on this figure of 500 acres per share failed because the promise
was held to be the work of a private individual and not a commitment by
the court of the company.

In the absence of private title to land in the early years of the
Virginia colony, the company relied upon a corporate form of management
with the pooling of community effort to clear the land, construct
buildings, develop agriculture, and engage in trade with the Indians.
This was not an experiment based on a theory of communism for the
joint-stock claims were limited in time. Most of the settlers were more
in a position of contract laborers performing services for the company,
and plans were devised for monetary dividends even before 1616 if the
colony prospered. Inadequate supplies from England, severe weather
conditions, hostility of the Indians, and the lack of willingness for
industrious labor on the part of the early settlers depleted the common
storehouse upon which the colonists were forced to rely, leading to the
exercise of stern and autocratic measures by John Smith and some of his
successors as leaders in the colony. Among the factors that contributed
to the lack of zeal among the settlers was the absence of private
ownership of land.

Prior to the promised distribution of land in 1616, there was granted
private use of land under a tenant-farm policy which most probably was
first inaugurated in 1614 under Sir Thomas Dale, although there is some
uncertainty about the date. Three acres of "cleare ground" were allotted
to men of the old settlement. In effect they became tenants of the
company and were obligated to render only one month's service to the
colony at some period other than the planting and harvesting time and to
contribute annually to the common magazine two barrels and a half of
corn on the ear. This tenant-farm policy worked well and better
conditions resulted with increased production of crops and stock.
According to one account in 1616:

They sow and reape their corne in sufficient proportion, without
want or impeachment; their kine multiply already to some hundreds,
their s