University of Virginia Library

50. Plantation Life in Virginia
BY ROBERT BEVERLY (1720)

As the families live altogether at country-seats, they each have their graziers, seedsmen, gardeners, brewers, bakers, butchers, and cooks.[184] They have plenty and a variety of provisions for their table; and as for spicery, and other things that the country does not produce, they have constant supplies of them from England. The gentry pretend to have their victuals served up as nicely as if they were in London.

When I come to speak of their cattle, I cannot forbear charging my countrymen with exceeding unthrift. By not providing sufficiently for them during the winter, they starve their young cattle, or at least stunt their growth.

Their fish is in vast plenty and variety, and extraordinarily good of its kind. Beef and pork are commonly sold there, at from one penny to two pence the pound, or more, according to the time of the year; their fattest and largest pullets at six 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; their turkey cocks at two shillings or half a crown.[185] Oysters and wild fowl are not so dear as poultry, and in their season are the cheapest food they have. Their deer are commonly sold from five to ten shillings according to their scarcity or goodness.[186]

The bread in gentlemen's houses is generally made of wheat, but some choose the pone, which is the bread

made of Indian meal. Many of the poorer sort of people have so little regard for the English grain that although they might have it with the least trouble in the world, yet they do not sow the ground because they will not be at the trouble of making a fence particularly for it. And therefore their constant bread is pone, so called from the Indian name oppone.

A kitchen garden does not thrive better nor faster in any part of the universe, than in Virginia. They have all the fruit plants that grow in England, and in greater perfection than in England. Besides these they have several roots, herbs, vine-fruits, and salad flowers peculiar to themselves, most of which will neither increase, nor grow to perfection in England.

Their small drink is either wine and water, beer, milk and water, or water alone.[187] The richer sort of people generally brew their small beer with malt, which they have from England, though barley grows there very well; but for want of the convenience of malthouses, the inhabitants take no care to sow it. The poorer sort brew their beer from molasses and bran; from Indian corn, malted by drying it in a stove; from persimmons dried in cakes and baked; from potatoes; or from the green stalks of Indian corn cut small, and bruised.

Their strong drink is Madeira wine, cider, mobby punch, made either of rum from the Caribbee Islands, or brandy distilled from their apples and peaches; besides brandy, wine and strong beer, which they have constantly from England.

Their fuel is altogether wood, which every man burns at pleasure, for it costs him only the cutting,

and carrying it home. In all new grounds it is such an incumbrance, that they are forced to burn great heaps of it, to rid the land. They have very good pit-coal in several places of the country, but no man has yet thought it worth his while to make use of it, as he has wood in plenty, which is lying conveniently near him.[188]

They get their clothing of all sorts from England, as linen, woolen, silk, hats, and leather: yet flax and hemp grow nowhere 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 well. Most of their hides lie and spoil, 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 in so careless a fashion, that the planters do not care to buy them, if they can get others. Sometimes perhaps a better manager than ordinary, will vouchsafe to make a pair of breeches of a deerskin. Nay, they are such abominably poor managers ,that though their country be over-run 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.

For their recreation, the plantations, orchards, and gardens constantly afford them fragrant and delightful walks. In their woods and fields, they have an unknown variety of vegetables, and other rarities of nature to discover and observe. They have hunting,

fishing, and fowling, with which they entertain them selves in a hundred ways. There is the most good-nature and hospitality practiced in the world, both towards friends and strangers; but the worst of it is, this generosity is attended now and then, with a little too much intemperance.

A neighborhood is as much scattered as in the country in England; but the goodness of the roads, and the fairness of the weather, bring people often together. The inhabitants are very courteous to travellers. A stranger has only to inquire upon the road, where any gentleman, or good house keeper lives, and there he may depend upon being received with hospitality. This good nature is so general among their people, that the gentry, when they go abroad, order their principal servant to entertain all visitors, with everything the plantation affords. And the poor planters who have but one bed will very often sit up, or lie upon a couch all night, to make room for a weary traveller to rest himself after his journey.