Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/115

 In the boundaries of the present State of North Carolina there were found, upon the first discovery, enormous forests of pine trees extending in some parts over a circuit of sixty miles, but in the territory coincident with that of modern Virginia, these trees were only very numerous on the coast and along the shores of the Bay, and at the mouths of the larger streams. The observations of subsequent times have shown that the pine is principally a tree of secondary growth in this division of the State. That as a rule it was dispersed at the period of the earliest settlement is disclosed by the fact, that in a communication from the authorities in Virginia to the Company in London, written in 1622, the statement is made that pitch and tar could never become staple commodities of the Colony because the pines were so scattered that it would be unprofitable to bring them together. The finest specimens of this tree discovered by the earliest settlers were found on the general line of shore lying on the southern side of the modern Hampton Roads. An accurate notion