You might find it interesting to check the British Proclamations, which  
contain several items relating to tobacco production and export from America to  
England.  As early as 1630's they noted as having been sent contaminated  
shipments, where the contents had been adulterated with 'bad' and foreign  
materials. 
 
Once the 'medicinal' use of tobacco was discovered there was a general  
free-for-all of countries and individuals trying to get into the act.  
 
The crown took a dim view of independent enterprise, and issued a number of  
papers relating to those who tried to circumvent paying duties involved. Not  
only did ships from other countries purchase tobacco from America, reducing 
the  amount available to Britain at a set rate, but apparently the citizenry of 
the  empire itself gleefully decided that America shouldn't have all the  fun 
and got busy putting in crops of their own. If they had paid duty to  the king 
they most likely wouldn't have been bothered, and raising tobacco in  America 
may never have been nearly as large an industry.
 
Source: British Royal Proclamations Relating to America, 1603-1783, edited  
by Clarence S. Brigham, A.M.
Your browser might be able to find this online.
 
  Janice
 
 
 
In a message dated 11/8/2008 3:06:30 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:


"The  long-term decline in the price of leaf, from 1 or 2s per pound in the
boom  times of the 1620's to 5d in the mid-1630s, to 2 or 3d in the early
1650s,  to 1 or 2d in the 1660s, and to less than 1d after 1680, was not
simply the  result of overproduction ... planters were unable to lower the
costs of  production any further: ... ."  "The result was thirty years  of
depression until the end of the War of Spanish Succession and renewed  demand
after 1715."

"In Virginia, the best soils were to be found  between the James and
Rappahannock rivers, for scented [sweet] tobacco was  grown mainly for the
London market."
"Anne Arundel County [Maryland]  ....produced the lower-priced oronoco.
Mediocre or poor soils were found on  the Eastern Shore and on the southern
bank of the James in counties such as  Surry and Lower Norfolk."

"In Lower Norfolk County, tobacco cultivation  largely came to a halt in the
1680s and was replaced by the production of  tar and the sale of livestock
and foodstuffs to the West  Indies."


James Horn "Adapting to a New World: English Society in  the
Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake" (Chapel Hill, N.C. and London:  University of
North Carolina Press, 1994) 143-144, 146

s =  shilling
d = pence

There seems to have been a bursting tobacco  bubble that caused misery for
the 30-year period between 1680 and 1710 of  the depression when tobacco was
just above 1 penny a pound and planters  were in mortgage debts .  Other
crops had to be cultivated for  survival just as now technology is replacing
manufacturing and we have a  bubble or two to contend with.

Just as today's dollar has dropped in  value due to economic problems, the
penny or pence  in England against  the Virginia currency - tobacco - would
affect exchange rate during the  time period of the 30-year depression.

....
 


Poldi


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