32 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



wigs, a tailor to keep their clothes, and a drummer 

 for why, who shall guess? 



This was the debonair handful which came to found 

 a tributary state, to lay, all unawares, the foundations 

 of a new nation, to build homes and gardens in the 

 deep reaches of the wilderness that they first must con- 

 quer. Not what could be called a likely seeming crew 

 for the task dandies and gallants, fearless and daunt- 

 less, to be sure, but gentlemen adventurers of a truth, 

 unskilled in the use of any implements save those of 

 fighting, men of activity and action, impetuous, im- 

 patient and imperious. 



On across the great Chesapeake they sailed, and into 

 the mouth of that loveliest of rivers the Powhatan by 

 ancient right and savage kingship, but thenceforth to 

 be the James, for their king, according to the invaders. 

 And thus, up the water-way of the Indian, came the 

 pale-face civilization. And they worked, of a surety, 

 in those early days, every man doing a man's share, vel- 

 vet breeches or no; worked so well that within two 

 weeks of their arrival, the first sowing of wheat at the 

 Plantation of Jamestown had been made. Following 

 this "a garden was laid off, and the seeds of fruits and 

 vegetables not indigenous to the country," were 

 planted. 



But the charter under which the London Company 

 was permitted to colonize, stipulated that for five years 



