would have made difficult any attempt at an
overland attack.

The James was sufficiently deep to take care of any ocean going
vessels of that time. The heavily forested surroundings furnished
protection from violent storms. The channel ran near the shore. Ships
could be moored by cables to trees on the land.

From the standpoint of raising food stuffs, the colonists could
hardly have picked a more unfavorable situation. The peninsula was
connected with the shore to the north by a narrow neck of land
"thirty yards over." As this narrow strip of land was usually flooded
during times of high water, the peninsula was for most purposes an
island by which designation it is generally known.

There were about eight hundred and fifty acres of heavily timbered
forest lands on the island and about eight hundred acres of marsh
covered with coarse reedy grasses but there was no cleared land ready
for seeding.

Clearing forest lands even with modern tools and equipment is a slow
laborious process. Cutting down the trees is only a beginning. The
stumps with their interlocking root systems have to be removed. It
takes many years for hardwood stumps to rot to a condition that they
may be easily destroyed. Although the trees on Jamestown Island were
large, they could be cut, and those with straight grained boles rived
into clapboards, or the logs rolled into piles and burned for their
ashes, a product that was in demand in England for use in the
manufacture of soap.

The soil on the Island may not have been very fertile. The fact that
the Indians had never cleared any of the land indicates they did not
consider it of the best quality.

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT FARMING

Captain Newport assigned a third of the settlers, or about
thirty-five men, to husbandry. Nothing came from their labors. At one
of their first attempts to plant corn, probably English grain, they
were assaulted by a few venturesome Indians which so discouraged the
settlers, that they made no further efforts to provide crops for food
that season. One of the colonists complained about the difficulties
of preparing land for corn. Another mentions that some made gardens.
The growing season was too far spent when they finally settled at
Jamestown to allow for clearing land for spring-seeded grains.

By mid-summer their food supply was becoming seriously depleted.
Fortunately the Indians remained friendly. Captain John Smith informs
us that in July:

It pleased Go