Colonial Garden-making 17 



confused and disappointing. In the garden itself 

 the excess of color is as cloying as its surfeit of 

 scent pouring from the thousands of open flower 

 cups ; we long for green hedges, even for scanter 

 bloom and for fainter fragrance. It is not a garden 

 to live in, as are our box-bordered gardens of the 

 North, our cheerful cottage borders, and our well- 

 balanced Italian gardens, so restful to the eye; it is 

 a garden to look at and wonder at. 



The Dutch settlers brought their love of flower- 

 ing bulbs, and the bulbs also, to the new world. 

 Adrian Van der Donck, a gossiping visitor to New 

 Netherland when the little town of New Amsterdam 

 had about a thousand inhabitants, described the fine 

 kitchen gardens, the vegetables and fruits, and gave 

 an interesting list of garden flowers which he found 

 under cultivation by the Dutch vrouws. He says : 



" Of the Flowers. The flowers in general which the 

 Netherlander have introduced there are the white and red 

 roses of different kinds, the cornelian roses, and stock roses; 

 and those of which there were none before in the country, 

 such as eglantine, several kinds of gillyflowers, jenoffelins, 

 different varieties of fine tulips, crown imperials, white 

 lilies, the lily frutularia, anemones, baredames, violets, mari- 

 golds, summer sots, etc. The clove tree has also been 

 introduced, and there are various indigenous trees that 

 bear handsome flowers, which are unknown in the Nether- 

 lands. We also find there some flowers of native growth, 

 as, for instance, sunflowers, red and yellow lilies, moun- 

 tain lilies, morning stars, red, white, and yeljow maritorfles 

 (a very sweet flower), several species of bell flowers, etc., 

 to which I have not given particular attention, but amateurs 

 c 



