96 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



for wainscoting the dining-room of his house, would 

 hardly tolerate in the garden outside his own doors 

 any hint of the worldliness which had been put reso- 

 lutely behind as a menace to the soul. Pleasant to 

 walk in, the space may have been, with white palings, 

 or perhaps a high fence, protecting it from the outer 

 world. But it was a chance pleasaunce rather than 

 an intended one, with this and that and the other set 

 in careless indifference to all save convenience, and 

 the plants' individual liking or necessity. 



Tradition has it that the earlier garden of Gover- 

 nor Endicott, at his seat in Salem called "Orchard" 

 and "Birchwood" variously, was the source of what 

 is now perhaps the commonest field flower of all the 

 United States — a flower that few ever suspect of 

 being an exotic — the pestiferous white weed, the 

 jubilant, smiling ox-eye daisy. From this old, old 

 Salem dooryard garden it has danced to the music of 

 the east wind straight across the land; up and down 

 the meadows, through the long grass and the short grass, 

 in along every highway and every byway, where- 

 ever man has penetrated it has followed, gaily 

 taking possession very often and driving him out 

 completely. 



That Endicott valued the daisy enough to bring 

 it with him to new England from old, marks him as 

 a man of taste, for this flower had in ancient days 



