§ 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.
§ 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.
§ 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 Virginia. As that was seated upon a great bay and sea, wherein were all the conveniencies for shipping and trade, so is Virginia. Had that fertility of soil? So has Virginia, equal to any land in the known world. In fine, if any one impartially considers all the advantages of this country, as nature made it, he must allow it to be as fine a place as any in the universe, but I confess I am ashamed to say any thing of its improvements, because I must at the same time reproach my countrymen with unpardonable sloth. If there be any excuse for them in this matter, 'tis the exceeding plenty of good things with which nature has blest them; for where God Almighty is so merciful as to give plenty and ease, people easily forget their duty.
All the countries in the world, seated in or near the latitude of Virginia, are esteemed the fruitfullest and pleasantest of all climates. As for example, Canaan, Syria, Persia, great part of India, China and Japan, the Morea, Spain, Portugal, and the coast of Barbary, none of which differ many degrees of latitude from Virginia. These are reckoned the gardens of the world, while Virginia is unjustly neglected by its own inhabitants, and abused by other people.
§ 79. That which makes this country most unfortunate, is, that it must submit to receive its character from the mouths not only of unfit, but very unequal judges; for all its reproaches happen after this manner.