THE PRESIDENTS' GARDENS 147 



went into it — the date when the first peach blossom 

 unfolded, likewise the date when the sickle went first 

 into the wheat. Nothing important or otherwise that 

 pertained to the garden or farm was omitted. This 

 was in 1766, when he was beginning to plan a house 

 of his own ; seven years after Washington had brought 

 his wife and her two children to dwell at Mount Ver- 

 non, and taken up his life as a family man. Just why 

 Jefferson should have planned at this time i separate 

 house for himself, is not quite apparent. His father's 

 death when he was a lad of fourteen had given him 

 the ancestral home ; but he had an individual taste and 

 the natural instinct of independence — which probably 

 made him wish for something of his very own. At any * 

 rate, by 1770, when the old house at Shad well was de- 

 stroyed by fire, his new home at Monticello was suffi- 

 ciently built to be livable. It was but the beginning 

 of the mansion as it now is, to be sure, and at the time 

 of his marriage two years later, it was still a very small 

 dwelling. But he had made a start, his very own 

 from the ground up. 



The original form of the mountain which he had 

 selected from all his vast holdings for the site of his 

 Mansion House, was what is commonly called a sugar 

 loaf. The very top of this elevation he cleared sufB- 

 ciently, and levelled to a magnificent space ; and here he 

 placed the house. This he designed himself, and later 



