Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699

When England emerged from the shadow of the Spanish Armada, its leaders turned their eyes to the Atlantic in search of new markets and resources. The London Company poured vast sums into the Jamestown venture, hoping that the colony would soon become a source of food and raw material to balance overseas trade. Yet the first settlers were adventurers, not farmers, and they arrived with little experience or enthusiasm for tilling unfamiliar soil.

The early colonists imagined a Virginian garden that could rival the Mediterranean, producing oranges, lemons, sugar and spices under the same latitude. To survive, they had to fuse the time‑tested techniques of Roman and English husbandry with the untamed potential of the New World’s climate and land. This blend of Old World wisdom and frontier experimentation set the stage for a fledgling agricultural system that would slowly transform Virginia from a precarious outpost into a productive settlement.