For the regulation of the tobacco trade warehouses were erected at prominent points in the county, notable at Fergusson's Wharf, the Rocks, Fulghams (just across the river from Smithfield), Pate's Field (now Battery Park). All the tobacco was required to be brought to these various warehouses for inspection and weight and export duty, the regulation of which occupied much of the time of the General Assembly of those early days.

     Long before the advent of steamboats there had developed a large export trade, either with England direct or with its colonies in the West Indies, as well as a coast-wise trade from Maine to Florida, as is attested by the foundation logs of a continuous line of old wharves occupying the entire water front of the town of Smithfield, many of whose houses were built over large, deep brick cellars for the storage of bacon, lard, etc. Thus was developed, early, that trade in bacon which has continued till the present, resulting in the acknowledged excellency of the "Isle of Wight Bacon" and the "Smithfield Hams."

     Before the building of the Norfolk & Western Railroad and other railroads through the county, this trade reached out for thirty or forty miles into the surrounding counties, and in addition thousands of hogs were driven, on foot, from Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina to supply the demands of this immense trade, principally with the West Indies, in exchange for their sugar, coffee and rum. Pipe Staves for their sugar hogsheads, hoop poles and peas were also exported, and not always in English or Dutch bottoms, for we read in the old records of several men of this county who owned their own vessels, being rewarded by the General Assembly for their building, which has already been related.

     In 1667 four Dutch men-of-war came up the river and destroyed twenty vessels that were trading with Isle of Wight and other Southside counties, which even shows the extent of the export trade at that early period.

     No indigenous product more suitable for the wants of the colonists was ever furnished by any country than "Indian Corn," and had not the early settlers of this country been so busily engaged in the raising of tobacco to the exclusion of it there would have been no suffering and starvation such as there  was in the early times. But trusting in the idea of being able to buy or barter from the Indians sufficient for their wants, and not knowing how improvident these poor savages were, there was frequently such scarcity of this mainstay of their subsistence that the early laws required every owner of a plantation to cultivate, under sever penalty, at least two acres for every laboring person, and the constables were required to rigidly enforce this law; but it seemed a difficult matter to break them up from their habit of the cultivation of their best lands in tobacco. The General Assembly never interfered with the price at which corn was sold, and every man was allowed to sell at the best rate he could; nor did they interfere, but a few times, with its exportation, and then only in anticipation of a scarcity, the prohibition being immediately withdrawn.

     In 1630, five bushels, "Winchester Measure," was, by law, made to be the contents of a barrel of corn, and has so remained up to this time without the least change.

     The raising of cotton was early introduced and much of the land of this county is well adapted to its cultivation, but not very extensive crops were raised in early times, only enough for home consumption, until many years later when the cotton gin was invented; and then this county, especially the western portion, was largely engaged in its cultivation, and even now there is a considerable quantity raised in that part.