There is Coal enough in the Country, but good Fire-Wood being so plentiful that it encumbers the Land, they have no Necessity for the Trouble and Expence of digging up the Bowels of the Earth, and conveying them afterwards to their several Habitations.
There grows Plenty of Sumack, so very useful in the Dying Trade.
The Land is taken up in Tracts, and is Freehold by Patent under the King, paying two Shillings as a yearly Quit-Rent for every hundred Acres.
Most Land has been long since taken up and seated, except it be high up in the Country.
For surveying of Land, when any is taken up, bought, exchanged, or the Right contested, there is appointed a Surveyor in each County, nominated and examined by the Governors of the College, in whose Gift those Places are under the Surveyor General.
But of this I may be more particular upon another Occasion; only I shall here observe, that every five or seven Years all People are obliged to go a Procession round their own Bounds, and renew their Landmarks by cutting fresh Notches in the boundary Trees.
Sometimes whole Plantations are sold, and at other Times small Habitations and Lands are let; but this is not very common, most having Land of their own; and they that have not think to make more Profit by turning Overseers, or by some other better Ways, than by Farming.
Though now Land sells well there, in a few Years it will be more valued, since the Number of Inhabitants encreases so prodigiously; and the Tracts being divided every Age among several Children (not unlike Gavel Kind in Kent and Urchinfield) into smaller Plantations; they at Length must be reduced to a Necessity of making the most of, and valuing a little, which is now almost set at Nought.
In general the Country of Virginia is plentiful, pleasant and healthy; especially to such as are not too fond of the Customs and Way of living they have been used to elsewhere; and to such as will endeavour at first to bear with some small Matters, and wean themselves, and make every Change as agreeable as they can.
Without such Proceeding the best Country in the World would not please them; since wherever they go from Home they must certainly find many Things different from what they have been accustomed to.