THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 



varying occupations of days and seasons in her diary. 

 The wine-press at work, herbs gathered and dried, "a 

 busy morning in my Still-Room," where cordials and 

 waters were distilled or expressed, the planting of this 

 and that, particularly the making of that famous aspara- 

 gus bed, which she watched from a camp-stool under a 

 willow, carrying an umbrella and wearing galoshes, 

 "for it was wet after last night's downpour." 



In the South a different mode of life evolved another 

 sort of garden. Gardens more like the great old English 

 places, but more glowing, more luxuriant. The work 

 was done by hosts of slaves, and room and money and 

 inherited luxury were the rule rather than the excep- 

 tion. The accumulated taste of generations sought its 

 expression in these southern gardens, and a touch of 

 stateliness marks them. Much thought and study was 

 given to laying them out, and landscape artists were 

 brought from abroad to assist in designing them. 



Coldstream Plantation, in South Carolina, is an ideal 

 garden of this kind, and remains almost perfectly what 

 it was, improved and enriched by its century of green 

 security. A wonderful repose lies like a holy spell upon 

 the place, a blessed sense of peace belonging both to 

 house and grounds. The house brings to mind the line 

 of the old poet, 



May I a small house and large garden have, 



for small and simple it is compared with its garden, 



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