Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/209

 CHAPTER XIII

DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF THE PLANTER &#8212; continued

the descriptions of Virginia in the seventeenth century transmitted to us go to show that the people of all classes in that age lived in the greatest abundance. Those conditions which had furnished the aboriginal tribes with an unlimited supply of food of extraordinary variety, with the need of but small effort in securing it, prevailed with little appreciable modification except in one or two particulars. The soil, the air, the water, all contributed to the plenty so freely enjoyed by the great body of the English population. There were innumerable cattle that afforded butter, cheese, milk, veal, and beef. The ice-house as yet did not enter into the household economy, and in consequence it was the custom of a planter on slaughtering an ox to send to his neighbors such portions of the carcass as could be spared, which the neighbor repaid in his turn. At this time, the only means employed for the preservation of fresh meats was water flowing into a box house erected in the stream that issued from the spring, but this expedient did not serve