It wasn't virgin land that changed, it was an Indian landscape of precolonial times that we advanced and modified to our growth as humans. This view was confined to the eastern seaboard, from the mid-atlantic to New England. This chapter dicusses the abundance of flaura and fauna. The abundance is so great that a flock of pigeons darkens the sky. Maps of this time period were limited to the coast as man did not explore to the west for quite some time.
Man begins to associate particular trees with certain soil types as well as moisture levels.
They associate certain trees with acidic soils and others with fertile land, perfect for agriculture. They organize these trees as patches among the forest. Man eventually begins stripping forest for fields. This process was very slow at the time, due to the low number of people inhabiting North America. Early colonists were misleading in two ways in their reports of the new world.