12 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



were not, that it would occur to the colonists to bring 

 them here. The plants most prized at home would 

 be the ones most likely to be transported; and it is 

 rarely a native wild flower that occupies so exalted a 

 position with any people, as we well know ourselves. 

 The character of the people in the various sections 

 under which we have undertaken to consider them in 

 relation to their garden making, exercised a very de- 

 cided influence on the character of the gardens which 

 ultimately developed in the different locales. The 

 planters of Virginia came from a stock altogether unlike 

 that of the Puritans of Plymouth, while the thrifty 

 Dutch of Manhattan possessed virtues which neither 

 of the others knew, albeit they had vices quite as ob- 

 jectionable, no doubt. And Virginia, as might have 

 been expected, became a land of broad expanses, of 

 great estates, of landed gentry with many servants and 

 the pleasures and follies of their kind; while Plymouth 

 and the Massachusetts Colony was a land of small 

 possessions, of closer dwelling for safety's sake, of 

 stem industry on the part of every individual, with 

 few to serve, and of little pleasure; and the New Neth- 

 erlands was like neither, for it lacked the spaciousness 

 of the first and the fanaticism of the second, yet here 

 were farms, and industry unparalleled, common to 

 masters and servants alike, thrift, a full measure of 

 good times, and a decided indulgence in a certain taste 



