Ill 



NEW ENGLAND 



With dreams of the English gardens ever before them, 

 our Pilgrim fathers and mothers brought flower and vege- 

 table seeds to the new land, and the earliest entries in old 

 Plymouth records contain mention of "garden plotes."* 

 John Josselyn, fifty years later, wrote a book called "New 

 England Rarities Discovered," including a list of plants 

 originally brought from old England, mentioning those 

 suitable or not for this climate, and showing that our an- 

 cestors had lost no time in planting not only vegetables for 

 the benefit of their bodies but flowers as well for the cheer 

 of their souls. 



The New England States naturally have the largest 

 representation in this book, owing to the fact that the 

 climate of numerous Western and Southern States causes 

 many of the inhabitants to find summer homes near the 

 North Atlantic seaboard. It is not that the New Eng- 

 lander is a more ardent gardener, but rather that ardent 

 gardeners from elsewhere are tempted by the soil and 

 climate to join the Easterners in creating these flower 

 "plotes," which beautify hundreds of hamlets in this sec- 



* Quoted from "Old Time Gardens," by Alice Morse Earle. 



13 



