At the mouths of the rivers and along the shores of the Bay and the sea and in all the inland bogs and swamps, the myrtle bush was found in great abundance, and from it at a later period was manufactured a wax of a greenish tint, which upon refinement became entirely transparent. This wax did not lose its hardness in the hottest weather; it was converted into candles for the use of the poor and rich alike among the colonists, and so pleasant was the odor of the snuff, that the light of these candles was frequently extinguished for no other purpose than to obtain the delicious incense.[1] In the fertile low grounds wild hops were found, and also many acres of onions in a single patch, the onions attaining to the size of the end of the average thumb.[2] In addition, there were muskmelons, large enough to fill the space of several quarts, macocks or squashes, gourds, maracocks or mayapples, beans and pumpkins, the latter propagating in such abundance that a hundred were frequently observed to spring from one seed.[3] The potato and the watermelon, to which the soil of the State has been shown to be so well adapted, the Hanover watermelon, produced in a county lying only a score of miles from Jamestown, being now one of the most famous varieties of this fruit, were not indigenous to Virginia,[4] but were introduced with the peach and other fruits and
- ↑ Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 108.
- ↑ Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 59.
- ↑ Ralph Hamor’s True Discourse, pp. 21, 22.
- ↑ Captain John Davis of the Pennsylvania Line, who passed through Hanover County during the Yorktown Campaign, entered in his diary the following note, which is not the less appreciative because ungrammatical “The Country abounds in the Best Water Millons I ever see.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. I, p. 8.
transplant them, but can find enough to fill their baskets, when they have a mind, in the deserted old fields.” Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 104.
