Title: Was the land in colonial Virginia good or bad, and why? - eNotes.com
Headings: Was the land in colonial Virginia good or bad, and why?
The Southern Colonies
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Was the land in colonial Virginia good or bad, and why?
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Content: Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. Greg Jackson, M.A.
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The English settlers of the Virginia Colony generally found very good land to cultivate. The many rivers provided nutrient-rich soils in the coastal areas that were able to support the cultivation of such crops as tobacco, wheat, and flax. These cash crops were traded back to Great Britain and provided the main source of income for the colonies. The relatively long growing season of Virginia also helped ensure that the colonists were able to produce bountiful harvests once they had adjusted to the differences in climate between their new colony and what they had known in England. It should be noted that the first English colonists of Virginia were still met with many difficulties. When they first settled in Jamestown and Roanoke, the settlers found themselves in areas that did not have the best conditions for agriculture. These swampy lowlands were the breeding grounds for many mosquito-borne diseases and lacked ample access to clean drinking water. As a result, these earliest colonies were met with repeated outbreaks of disease and famine. It was not until the colonists learned new farming techniques and began to cultivate higher grounds that agriculture really began to thrive in the colony.