312 WASHINOTOd, A HORTICULTURIST. 



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WASHINGTON, A HORTICULTURIST. 



We nro apt, from all tliat lias been published, to look upon "Wasliiti^^ton as a 

 farmer on a larpre scale, but, when we approach him nearly, we find him also a 

 trardencr and a horticulturist. In reading Irving's new life of the great States- 

 man, it is ditficult not to extract a passage here and there, and to-day we must 

 be indulged in this respect. 



In a letter to the Chevalier de Chastellux, for whom he felt an especial regard, 

 he says : " I will only repeat to you the assurances of my friendship, and of the 

 pleasure I shall feel in seeing you in the shade of those trees which my hands 

 liave planted ; and which, by their rapid growth, at once indicate a knowledge of 

 my declining years, and their disposition to spread their mantles over me before I 

 go hence to return no more." (Vol. iv. p. 455.) 



A few pages forward, we come upon the following passages, from the graceful 

 pen of Mr. Irving : — 



" He had a congenial correspondent in his quondam brother-soldier. Governor 

 Clinton, of New York, whose spear, like his own, had been turned into a i)ruuing- 

 hook. 



" Whenever the season is proper, and an opportunity offers," writes he to the 

 Governor, "I shall be glad to receive the Balsam-trees, or others which you may 

 think curious and exotic with us, as I am endeavoring to improve the grounds 

 al)out my house in this way." He recommends to the Governor's care certain 

 grape-vines, of the choicest kinds, for the table, which an uncle of the Chevalier 

 de Luzerne had engaged to send from France, and which must be about to arrive 

 at New York. He is literally going to sit under his own vine and his own 6g- 

 tree, and devote himself to the quiet pleasures of rural life. 



" At the o))ening of the year 1785, the entries in his diary show him diligently 

 employed in preparations to improve his groves and shrubbery. On the lUth of 

 January, he notes that the white thorn is in full berry ; on the 20th, he begins to 

 clear the pine groves of undergrowth. 



" In February, he transplants ivy under the walls of the garden, to which it 

 still clings. In March, he is planting hemlock-trees, that most beautiful species 

 of American evergreens, numbers of which had been brought hither from Occo- 

 quan. In April, he is sowing holly berries in drills, some adjoining a green-brier 

 hedge on the north side of the garden gate; others in a semicircle on the lawn. 

 Many of the holly bushes thus produced, are still flourishing about the place, in 

 full vigor. He had learned the policy, not sufficiently adopted in our country, of 

 clothing his ornamented grounds as much as possible with evergreens, which resist 

 the rigors of our winter, and keep up a cheering verdure throughout the year. Of 

 the trees fitted for shade in pasture land, he notes the locust, maple, black mul- 

 berry, black walnut, black gum, dogwood, and sassafras, none of which, he observes, 

 materially injure the grass beneath them, 



" Is, then, for once a soldier's dream realized ? Is he in perfect enjoyment of 

 that seclusion from the world and its distractions, which he had so often pictured 

 to himself amid the hardships and turmoils of the camp ? Alas, no ! The ' post,' 

 that ' herald of a noisy world,' invades his quiet, and loads his table with letters, 

 until correspondence becomes an intolerable burden." 



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