WHERE TO GO 177 



"Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for 

 man's habitation." 



Virginia lies between the extremes of heat and cold, re- 

 moved alike from the sultry, protracted summers of the 

 more southern states, and the longer winters and devastating 

 storm and cyclones of the North and Northwest. Its limits 

 north and south correspond to California and southern 

 Europe. 



The climate is mild and healthful. The winters are less 

 severe than in the Northern and Northwestern states, or 

 even the western localities of the same latitude, while the 

 occasional periods of extreme heat in the summer are not 

 more oppressive than hi many portions of the North. 



Tidewater Virginia, or the Coastal Plain, as it is some- 

 times called, receives the name from the fact that the streams 

 that penetrate it feel the ebb and flow of the tides from the 

 ocean up to the head of navigation. It consists chiefly of 

 broad and level plains, while a considerable portion, nearest 

 to the bay, has shallow bays and estuaries, and marshes 

 that are in most instances reached only by the ocean tides. 

 These marshes abound with wild duck and sora. Tidewater 

 is mainly an alluvial country. The soil is chiefly light, sandy 

 loam, underlaid with clay. Its principal productions are 

 fruits and early vegetables, which are raised in extensive 

 "market gardens," and shipped in large quantities to North- 

 ern cities. The fertilizing minerals gypsum, marl, and 

 greensand abound, and their judicious use readily restores 

 the lands when exhausted by improvident cultivation. 



Middle Virginia is a wide, undulating plain, crossed by 

 many rivers that have cut their channels to a considerable 

 depth and are bordered by alluvial bottom lands that are 

 very productive. The soil consists of clays with a subsoil 



