GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 39 



about two years later a very small house, consider- 

 ing whose it was, for it contained only six rooms. 

 But the kitchens and various rooms devoted to the 

 service of the household were invariably located in 

 detached outbuildings, in this sunny land; so this, 

 after all, was a house of considerable dignity and size, 

 in view of the youth of the Colony. But it is com- 

 monly said and believed that it could boast no dwell- 

 ing in the seventeenth century or none until towards 

 the end of that century of any pretense to any 

 beauty or elegance. And naturally while houses were 

 still somewhat rude and unlovely, gardens would be 

 also. 



Towards the end of that century a new era was 

 dawning, however the era that always comes when 

 the fighting and stern effort of pioneer years are over. 

 The cultivation of tobacco had gradually extended 

 and widened the holdings of those who raised it, for 

 almost no plant exhausts the soil as it does; hence 

 every plantation continually expanded, as before men- 

 tioned, for new fields had constantly to be cleared up 

 for it. The old and worn out ones where it had been 

 cropped were improvidently left to barrenness in that 

 age of plenty. If it robbed the land, however, it 

 brought riches to the planters; and for it their laborers 

 were many, for the slaves had come early. Added to 

 this, the planters themselves were, many of them, men 



