148 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



it was not infrequently said that Thomas Jefferson was 

 the first American who had consulted the fine arts to 

 know how he should shelter himself from the weather. 

 It is indeed a beautiful structure. 



His scheme of distributing offices and servants' quar- 

 ters did away entirely with the customary line or lines 

 of "dependent houses," flanking the Mansion House; 

 and in this respect as well as in many others, Mon- 

 ticello is entirely different from other southern estates. 

 Beneath the house and partly forming its terraces were 

 all these features the kitchen and "rooms for all sorts 

 of purposes," the servants' rooms on one side, "warm 

 in winter and cool in summer," rooms for vegetables, 

 fruit, cider and wood; and cellars, ice-houses and cis- 

 terns. The hilltop location made this arrangement 

 possible and practical, where a level site would have 

 precluded it. 



According to the superintendent at that time, the 

 vegetable garden was made while Jefferson was Presi- 

 dent; but this must have been a new or a second 

 vegetable garden, for the place could hardly have been 

 without one all the years of his occupancy until his 

 election in 1801. This garden was a work of much 

 labor, for the rock had to be blown out for the walls 

 of the different terraces and earth had then to be 

 brought in to nourish the plants. But it was a fine 

 garden, once it was finished, and delicious fruits and 



