The Old-Fashioned Garden 51 



matured earlier than in the wind-swept open; flowers blossomed 

 there in greater perfection as the soil held the moisture drained 

 from surrounding land; and the large area of sun-baked brick 

 wall, against which fruit trees and vines were espaliered, forced 

 the pears, peaches, plums and grapes to yield earlier fruit of extra 

 sweetness. But while the great advantage of a sunken garden 

 in flat, windy Holland was quite apparent, the expense of its 

 making was not so easily justified here, and it gradually disappeared. 



With the rapid growth of strenuous, commercial, New Amster- 

 dam, the quaint, formal Dutch gardens of intricate patterns out- 

 lined with box gave place to warehouses along the river banks, 

 where comfortable homes had lately stood, to shops and residences 

 crowded into solid rows. Even at Albany, where wealth and good 

 living blossomed forth in the usual Dutch manner, not many old 

 gardens now remain. But at Croton-on-the-Hudson, the Van 

 Cortlandt Manor, built in 1681, still shows what a fine homestead 

 was like when the Empire State was a Dutch province. Descend- 

 ants of the original owners have lived in the dignified, comfortable 

 old house continuously. The present mistress delights in keeping 

 up the formal flower beds of the upper garden and the long, straight 

 flower-bordered walk where the happy children of nine generations 

 have raced and played, in preserving the noble trees, the velvety 

 turf, the lovely old-fashioned shrubs, just as they were in her great- 

 great-grandfather's time. How rarely indeed can such a home 

 be found anywhere among our restless, roving people! Sentiment 

 in a garden is the finest flower that grows there, after all. 



Generously comfortable living, which the most orthodox of 

 Friends did not pretend to despise, showed itself nowhere more 

 than in well-stocked gardens. William Penn, who imported for 

 his followers fruits, vegetables and flowers from the Old World, 



