To keep pace with the movement of the tobacco industry, new warehouses were built and others discontinued from time to time. And by observing the warehouse movement it is possible to grasp a general picture of the decline of the tobacco industry in Tidewater Virginia. The expansion of the industry into Piedmont is more difficult to follow during this period owing to the fact that inspection houses were not permitted above the Falls until after the Revolution. In 1730 seventy-two warehouses located in thirty counties were ordered erected and maintained for the purpose of inspection and storage by the General Assembly. Twelve years later warehouses were erected in only one additional county, Fairfax. A few of those established in 1730 were discontinued, but twenty-six new ones had been erected by 1742, making a total of ninety-three in operation at that time. From 1742 to 1765 the total number of inspection houses increased by about six, but this does not reveal a complete picture of the warehouse movement. A closer examination shows a much greater shift in the movement. Sixteen new inspection warehouses were erected during this period, twelve of them near the Fall Line; in the meantime, ten of the old established warehouses far below the Falls were discontinued. After a year without an official inspection system the lapsed inspection law was revived in October, 1776; seventy-six of the warehouses were re-established as official inspection stations. Soon after the end of the war the number of inspections began to increase again, and it was chiefly through the efforts of a David Ross that inspection warehouses were permitted above the Falls. The first inspections seem to have appeared above the Falls in Virginia in 1785: one at Crow's Ferry, Botetourt County; one at Lynch's Ferry, Campbell County; and a third at Point of Fork on the Rivanna River, Fluvanna County. Tobacco inspected in the warehouses above the Falls could not be legally delivered for exportation without first being delivered to a lower warehouse for transportation and reinspection upon demand by the purchaser. There were a number of reasons why the inspection warehouses were restricted to Tidewater Virginia until after the Revolution. It was not until after the Revolution that a strong need and demand for them was felt above the Falls. Inadequate transportation facilities in the interior made exportation from upland inspections less feasible. It is also probable that the Legislature was opposed to upland inspections as it would be more difficult to control the inspections, spread out over a larger area, as rigidly as those concentrated in a smaller area. And no doubt Tidewater Virginia recognized the economic value of having all of the inspections located in its own section. However, the sharp decline in tobacco production in the Tidewater followed by an equal increase in the Piedmont made inspections above the Falls inevitable.