Mute Timber? Fiscal Forestry and Environmental Stichomythia in the Old Arcadia

In 1590, two years after its original quarto publication, Thomas Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia received a second lavish printing complete with twenty-eight engravings of the Southeastern Algonquin. Although the text has recently gained notoriety as a prime example of early modern ethnography, critics have sometimes overlooked its main purpose: to drum up investment in the colonial venture. The first half of the book is in fact nothing more than an inventory of the abundant “marchantable commodities” [sic] of the New World that await only the hand of an intrepid entrepreneur to be converted into a handsome profit. Chapter 3, entitled “Of commodities for building and other necessary uses,” turns out to be a list of various trees species native to the Eastern seaboard accompanied by a detailed description of their numerous commercial applications.