Historic Gardens of Virginia 



they reached the dining-room, there was trouble in store for the 

 cook. Between the kitchen and the vegetable garden were three 

 important little buildings — the smokehouse, from the rafters of 

 which hung a goodly supply of old hams and bacon, the dairy and 

 the weaving-house with a potato cellar under it. In this house was 

 also a room in which were kept surplus supplies for the store- 

 room, garden tools, a work bench and carpenter's tools. 



The icehouse was about one hundred feet back of the kitchen. 

 This was a log house built almost entirely underground and 

 covered with shingles. The inside was lined with oak boards and 

 the building was drained at the bottom to carry off the water from 

 melting ice. 



No well-appointed plantation was complete without its office 

 where all business was transacted. The office at Bellevue was a 

 white two-story dormer-windowed little building with dark green 

 outside blinds. It had three rooms, one, and sometimes two of 

 which were used as overflow guest rooms for young men. 



The entrance to the farm was a hundred yards or more down 

 the road from that to the dwelling. This led to the overseer's 

 house and on to the stable, granar}^ hay barn and other such 

 buildings. There were also barns for curing tobacco, and log cabins 

 for farm hands were situated on little knolls here and there over 

 the farm. 



On the right of the dwelling was an old-fashioned flower garden 

 which deserves special mention. It was square in shape and 

 enclosed on two sides by a thick hedge of tall box-trees; on another 

 side by a row of fig trees planted close together and on a third 

 side by a white picket fence. In the corner where the box and fig 

 trees came together there was an outdoor room made by box-trees 

 planted in a circle meeting overhead and trimmed out on the inside. 

 This made a delightful place to read on a summer morning and 

 enjoy the flowers and figs. In the center was a circle of box four 

 feet high, within which were old-fashioned roses, and in the beds 

 around this perennials and other flowers were attractively arranged. 



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