The suave climate was somehow to foster alike a sense of caste and good neighborliness--class distinctions and republican ideas.
The "towns" were of the fewest and rudest--little more than small palisaded hamlets, built of frame or log, poised near the water of the river James.

The genius of the land was for the plantation rather than the town.

The fair and large brick or frame planter's house of a later time had not yet risen, but the system was well inaugurated that set a main or "big" house upon some fair site, with cabins clustered near it, and all surrounded, save on the river front, with far-flung acres, some planted with grain and the rest with tobacco.

Up and down the river these estates were strung together by the rudest roads, mere tracks through field and wood.

The cart was as yet the sole wheeled vehicle.
But the Virginia planter--a horseman in England--brought over horses, bred horses, and early placed horsemanship in the catalogue of the necessary colonial virtues.