In Joseph Ellis' biography of George Washington, we're offered a look into the world of the "new" landed gentry - the Virginia planting class. This elite group had stumbled upon a rare combination; a new crop and a ready-made market, albeit an ocean away. While tobacco took Europe by storm, becoming an instant success and a mainstay commodity for the civilized world, it was something of a puzzle to the agri-businessman because it was particularly hard on the land itself and required a great deal of physical labor to cultivate.
The labor issue, tragically, led to the infamous colonial slave trade. As far as tobacco's toll on the land, it just so happened that Virginia provided a seemingly endless supply! It doesn't take an economist, merely a glance at a map, to understand the scope of North America and how it dwarfed the comparatively crowded European states. A Virginia planter was more concerned about protection than he was space. So while a market existed and land was plentiful, the planters had uncovered a unique set of challenges in managing these tobacco plantations.
