Their common covering for dwelling houses is shingle, which is an oblong square of cypress or pine wood; but they cover their tobacco houses with thin clap board; and though they have slate enough in some particular parts of the country, and as strong clay as can be desired for making of tile, yet they have very few tiled houses; neither has any one yet thought it worth his while to dig up the slate, which will hardly be made use of, till the carriage there becomes cheaper, and more common; the slate lying far up the frontiers above water carriage.
CHAPTER XVII.
OF THE EDIBLES, POTABLES, AND FUEL IN VIRGINIA.
§ 70. The families being altogether on country seats, they have their graziers, seedsmen, gardeners, brewers, bakers, butchers and cooks, within themselves. They have plenty and variety of provisions for their table; and as for spicery, and other things that the country don't produce, they have constant supplies of them from England. The gentry pretend to have their victuals dressed, and served up as nicely, as if they were in London.
§ 71. When I come to speak of their cattle, I can't forbear charging my countrymen with exceeding ill husbandry, in not providing sufficiently for them all winter, by which means they starve their young cattle, or at least stint their growth; so that they seldom or never grow so large as they would do, if they were well managed; for the humor is there, if people can but save the lives of their cattle, though they suffer them to be never so poor in the winter, yet they will presently grow fat again in the spring, which they esteem sufficient for their purpose. And this is the occasion, that their beef and mutton are seldom or never so large, or so fat as in England. And yet with the least feeding imaginable, they are put into as good case as can be desired; and it is the same with their hogs.
Their fish is in vast plenty and variety, and extraordinary good in their kind. Beef and pork are commonly sold there, from one penny, to two pence the pound, or more, according to the time of year; their fattest and largest pullets at sixpence a piece; their capons at eight pence or nine pence a piece; their chickens at three or four shillings the dozen; their ducks at eight pence, or nine pence a piece; their geese at ten pence or a shilling; their turkey hens at fifteen or eighteen pence; and their turkey cocks at two shillings or half a crown. But oysters and wild fowl are not so dear, as the things I have reckoned before, being in their season the cheapest victuals they have. Their deer are commonly sold from five to ten shillings, according to the scarcity and goodness.
§ 72. The bread in gentlemen's houses is generally made of wheat, but some rather choose the pone, which is the bread made of Indian meal. Many of the poorer sort of people so little regard the English grain, that though they might have it with the least trouble in the world, yet they don't mind to sow the ground, because they won't be at the trouble of making a fence particularly for it. And, therefore, their constant bread is pone, not so called from the Latin panis, but from the Indian name oppone.