RARE AND NOTABLE PLANTS 



the most unsympathetic of these was 

 Silas Deane, who in 1775 wrote: 



"Germantown consists of one street 

 built mostly of rough stone, two miles 

 nearly in length, and the houses re- 

 semble the appearance of the inhabi- 

 tants, rough children of nature, and 

 German nature too." This writer 

 doubtless was an ancestral connection 

 of Lewis Carroll, who, in "Hunting of 

 the Snark," wrote, 



"The crew was Dutch, 

 and behaved as such." 



But though rather uncompliment- 

 ary, Deane's account is extremely in- 

 teresting, and as Townsend Ward 

 reports him, is as follows: 



"The greatest improvement on na- 

 ture is that on their groves, owing by 

 no means to luxury, but to penury and 

 "want. The growth is red oak (quer- 

 •cus rubra), interspersed with black 

 walnut (juglans nigra), etc. The 

 poor are allowed to cut up the brush 

 and trim the lower limbs; this leaves 

 the groves in the most beautiful or- 

 der you can imagine. All is clean on 

 the ground; removing every shrub 

 and bush, leaves the wind full play to 

 sweep the floor, and the soil, by no 

 means luxuriant, shooting up the trees 



iS 



