Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/126

 weed was dangerous. Extensive fields of wild flax were also discovered. Very naturally, there was only a small area of soil in grass in aboriginal Virginia as compared with the vast surface overgrown with forests. Smith asserted that the dropping of leaves turned the grass into weeds, and its scarcity was undoubtedly attributable to the narrowness of the open ground. In the marshes there were several varieties capable of being converted into hay, and at a subsequent period they furnished food for the cattle; these grasses appear to have been especially abundant on the Eastern Shore at the time Smith made his first voyage on the waters of the Chesapeake. Weeds sprang up very thickly along the margins of the streams, and on several occasions in the history of the first years of the Colony the Indians are stated to have used this cover as a place of ambush.

There are few references in the early narratives to the flowers discovered in Virginia. The forest, we are informed in general terms, was adorned with their colors, representing many shades. Percy declares that the ground in the vicinity of Jamestown overflowed to such a degree with flowers that it presented the aspect of an English garden in spring, and this was characteristic of the country wherever the adventurers extended their explorations. Indeed, there are few scenes possessing a rarer beauty than the Virginian forest at the season of the year witnessing the arrival of the English voyagers in the Powhatan, and it is easy to conceive the admiration which the blossoming trees and shrubs excited in the susceptible