The Piedmont Section 



and Chinquapin roses gave an individual charm remembered even 

 today by those whose childhood was passed in the old house. 



The devastation of the war period, with the succeeding years 

 of neglect, had done much to destroy the substance of the garden, 

 but when the present owners took possession in 1870, there were 

 still traces of the old planting, and a few surviving perennials gave 

 the main details of the former garden. The vegetable squares 

 lay in terraces below the flower borders; fruit trees, fig bushes, and 

 some flowers, were planted about their edges. Shrubs, lilacs, 

 trumpet creepers, grapevines, honeysuckles, yuccas, and narcissi, 

 whose age is unknown to persons living, still live and flourish, 

 though they have been divided and moved to make place for the 

 changing of the flower borders and the development of the present 

 terraced vegetable garden. 



The chief beauty and pride of the whole place are the dozen or 

 more trees surrounding the house — ^oaks, gums, and hickories — all 

 relics of the primeval forest. The oaks are estimated at between 

 four and five hundred years in age, and some have a spread of one 

 hundred and fifty-nine feet; their limbs hang high about the long, 

 low one-storied house, with its quaint roof, nestled below the great 

 branches. So tall are the trees, that the fine lawn of old bluegrass 

 flourishes like a green carpet, and the whole setting presents a pic- 

 ture, glowing in color, and restful in its quiet, simple charm. It has 

 been said that the designers of the house were better Presidents than 

 architects — it may be so — but surely their sense of fitness and beauty 

 was keenly developed when they chose the site for WiUiam Madi- 

 son's home, and placed the type of house it demanded within such 

 fitting environment, 



Violet Niles Walker. 



[257] 



