Virginia was destined to develop agriculturally. Attempts to suppress that industry only served to prolong the colony's troubles. There were no natural resources except the forests in the tidewater region; no Indian trade of any great value; no gems to be picked up at will; no minerals to be exploited. When the situation seemed most hopeless, the culture of a crop new to English farming completely changed their mental and pecuniary outlook. Despair changed to violent optimism. John Rolfe is generally credited with having been, in 1612, the first Virginia planter to engage in the growing of tobacco. Governor Dale at the time frowned on its culture and ruled that two of each man's allotment of three acres of land should be seeded to corn. Hence the change in governorship was a momentous event. CHANGE IN POLICY When Sir Thomas Dale left, in 1616, George Yeardley took over the management of the colony as Acting Governor. He lost no time in putting an end to the restrictions on tobacco culture. The next year, 1617, saw a remarkable transformation in the colonists' way of life. Inertia gave way to frantic activity. "The market-place and streets and all other spare places were set with the crop and the colonie dispersed all about planting tobacco." Nor is this surprising. Tobacco alone promised them surcease from poverty and want. Hope for a bountiful harvest spurred them on as it has spurred farmers in all generations. TOBACCO IN ENGLAND Many fantastic tales have been written about the introduction of the use of tobacco in England. Some of the most authentic historical items follow: The Spaniards found the natives in the West Indies using the plant both for chewing and smoking. They took seed to Europe where its use soon spread to other countries around the Mediterranean Sea. The first Englishman to report on the addiction of the American Indians to the use of tobacco appears to have been John Sparke who wrote the account of the voyage of Sir John Hawkins who, in the course of his travels, spent some months, in 1565, with an ill-fated French colony in Florida. Sparke reported "The Floridians when they travell, have a kinde of herbe dried, who with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together, doe sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure or five dayes without meat or drinke, and this the Frenchmen used for this purpose." It is quite likely that the sailors under Hawkins command acquired the habit and took some of the "dried herbs" back to England.