252 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



and arbors of grape. Boxwood hedges as elsewhere. 



Consult convenience in planning any sort of garden : 

 it will insure fidelity to the spirit and letter of th£ old 

 time as nothing else can — for above all else the early 

 garden makers here were practical, instinctively so. 

 Their homes had to be productive, whatever the num- 

 ber of the slaves and however well they prospered, for 

 that was part of their prosperity. Hence it follows 

 that whatever they planned, they had always an eye to 

 the care that must follow — and to the ease with which 

 that care might be insured. 



As illustrating the difference between the truly old 

 gardens and those of even a few years later, the plan 

 of Hampton, a Maryland estate, is given. "While 

 the house is of the eighteenth century, the gardens here 

 were laid out later than the latest date which we have 

 elected to admit as "old-fashioned" — although only a 

 few years subsequent to it, after all. But they present 

 an elaboration of detail quite unknown to anything of 

 the earlier Colonial or immediate post-Colonial days; 

 and are to be considered, therefore, mainly as illustrat- 

 ing what to avoid, in planning to reconstruct an old- 

 fashioned garden to-day. Wearying in detail they 

 are — ^yet they lack in a marked degree the convenience 

 which distinguishes Mount Vernon; and elaborate 

 though the queer convolutions of boxwood are at the 



