INTRODUCTORY 



OD ALMIGHTY," saith Bacon, "first planted a 

 garden; and indeed it is the greatest refreshment 

 to the spirits of man," 



Let us add, "Of women also." 

 For — at least in Virginia — women and gardens 

 go together. Perhaps it is so in those British Isles 

 from which sprang Virginia. At any rate, dwell in memory or in 

 imagination upon Virginia gardens and there arise women — 

 in late seventeenth century dress, in eighteenth century dress, in 

 nineteenth century, in twentieth century dress. Men also have 

 planned, men also walk in these gardens, and there forever children 

 sing and play. But women, young and in prime and old — it is 

 chiefly women. They move among the box-bushes; they train the 

 roses and tie the hollyhocks; they sow pansies and candytuft and 

 snapdragon and mignonette; they cut the dead away, they gather 

 for bowls and vases, gather from daffodil and lilac to the last mari- 

 gold and mourning bride. They are there in the spring time, in 

 the summer and the autumn. 



For Virginia gardens are not, after all, affairs of huge expanse 

 and expense, given over to gardeners, the owners' knees and fingers 

 warned off. After all, they are simple — Virginia gardens — simple 

 and sweet. We call them old. Many of them are old, even very 

 old as our country goes. Others are not so old. But alike they are 

 fragrant, alike they are dear. There is something — I do not 

 know — they are poetic. 



So it is fitting that this book — the book of the Historic Gardens 

 of Virginia — should be a book thought of and largely written by 

 women. Once they interchanged knowledge of one anothers' 

 gardens through letters and long, leisurely visits. Nowadays they 

 make Garden Associations. Such an one, the James River Garden 



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