Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/64

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The following were found in Virginia when firſt viſited by the Engliſh; but it is not ſaid whether of ſpontaneous growth, or by cultivation only. Moſt probably they were natives of more ſouthern climates, and handed along the continent from one nation to another of the ſavages.

There is an infinitude of other plants and flowers, for an enumeration and ſcientific deſcription of which I muſt refer to the Flora Virginica of our great botaniſt, Dr. Clayton, publiſhed by Gronovius at Leyden, in 1762. This accurate obſerver was a native and reſident of this ſtate, paſſed a long life in exploring and deſcribing its plants, and is ſuppoſed to have enlarged the botanical catalogue as much as almoſt any man who has lived.

Beſides theſe plants, which are native, our farms produce wheat, rye, barley, oats, buck wheat, broom corn, and Indian corn. The climate ſuits rice well enough, where the lands do. Tobacco, hemp, flax, and cotton, are ſtaple commodities. Indigo yields two cuttings. The ſilk-worm is a native, and the mulberry, proper for its food, grows kindly.

We cultivate alſo potatoes, both the long and