THE PRESIDENTS' GARDENS 141 



am able to do at present to situations of this kind, 

 which combine utility, ornament and amusement — I 

 shall certainly avail myself of the liberty you have 

 authorized me to take, in requesting a small supply of 

 such exotics, as, with a little aid may be reconciled to 

 the climate of my garden." The greenhouses which 

 he built were burned in 1835, and their contents, save 

 three plants alone — a lemon tree, a sago palm and a 

 century plant — of course perished. The buildings 

 were rebuilt in the same place, along the north side 

 of the garden, and on the same lines — ^but the houses 

 at the eastern end are later, and not a part of the 

 General's plan. 



Curiously shaped and divided are the compartments 

 in the north garden — and both gardens are curiously 

 formed. I would give a good deal to know just why 

 these unsymmetrical and apparently arbitrary patterns 

 were adopted — and why the little, trifling, yet very evi- 

 dent variations exist in the general outer form of the 

 two gardens. Certainly they were not variations by 

 chance, for the exactness of the plan wherever Wash- 

 ington wished it to be exact, is beautiful; moreover, 

 he was an engineer of skill, as well as a man of most 

 careful and accurate method, and no such chance hap- 

 pening would be even remotely possible, either in his 

 drawing or his execution. So it must remain a mys- 

 tery, unless, as tradition has it, the great order 



