They have very good pit coal (as
is formerly mentioned) in several places of the country; but no man has
yet thought it worth his while to make use of them, having wood in
plenty, and lying more convenient for him.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF THE CLOTHING IN VIRGINIA.

Sec. 76. They have their clothing of all sorts from England; as linen,
woollen, silk, hats and leather. Yet flax and hemp grow no where in the
world better than there. Their sheep yield good increase, and bear good
fleeces; but they shear them only to cool them. The mulberry tree, whose
leaf is the proper food of the silk worm, grows there like a weed, and
silk worms have been observed to thrive extremely, and without any
hazard. The very furs that their hats are made of perhaps go first from
thence; and most of their hides lie and rot, or are made use of only for
covering dry goods in a leaky house. Indeed, some few hides with much
ado are tanned and made into servants' shoes, but at so careless a rate,
that the planters don't care to buy them if they can get others; and
sometimes perhaps a better manager than ordinary will vouchsafe to make
a pair of breeches of a deerskin. Nay, they are such abominable ill
husbands, that though their country be overrun with wood, yet they have
all their wooden ware from England; their cabinets, chairs, tables,
stools, chests, boxes, cart wheels, and all other things, even so much
as their bowls and birchen brooms, to the eternal reproach of their
laziness.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF THE TEMPERATURE OF THE CLIMATE, AND THE INCONVENIENCIES ATTENDING IT.

Sec. 77. The natural temperature of the inhabited part of the country is
hot and moist, though this moisture I take to be occasioned by the
abundance of low grounds, marshes, creeks and rivers, which are
everywhere among their lower settlements; but more backward in the
woods, where they are now seating, and making new plantations, they have
abundance of high and dry land, where there are only crystal streams of
water, which flow gently from their springs in innumerable branches to
moisten and enrich the adjacent lands, and where a fog is rarely seen.

Sec. 78. The country is in a very happy situation, between the extremes of
heat and cold, but inclining rather to the first. Certainly it must be a
happy climate, since it is very near of the same latitude with the land
of promise. Besides, as the land of promise was full of rivers and
branches of rivers, so is Virg