132 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



April, 1907 



The fireplace is built of Tiffany brick with the facings and 

 hearth of similar brick, and a mantel-shelf supported on 

 corbelled brackets. The dining-room has a similar fireplace 

 and also has French windows opening on to a piazza. 



The kitchen and its dependencies are trimmed with cypress 

 and finished natural with hard oil. The kitchen and pantries 

 are well lighted and ventilated and are fitted up complete. 



The trim of the second floor is painted white, and the walls 



are hard finished and covered with artistic wall paper, each 

 room being carried out in one particular color scheme. This 

 floor contains three large bedrooms, ample closets, and bath- 

 room; the latter being fitted up with porcelain fixtures and 

 exposed plumbing. The floors of the first story are of maple, 

 and of the second story of North Carolina pine. The house 

 is supplied with steam heat. It was designed by Mr. Sullivan 

 W. Jones, architect, of New York. 



Evolution of American Grounds 



pS^^^^g^EW ENGLAND repeated the home land 

 ml N^V^^^'i^ V across the water, not only in the things that 

 WQj ^Q^^^Sm) she planted, but in the method of planting. 

 ■^^^^^^^ The apple and pear and plum and cherry 

 <^^|i^^^^^^ yi were promptly brought over, and with them 

 (^^^^^wq^Ah^;^ shrubs and plants, not only for the small 

 fruit garden, but for ornamenting the lawn. 

 The garden must he spaded once a year, just as in Old Eng- 

 land, although the space to be gone over was much larger. I 

 never saw a plow put into a garden until after 1840. This 

 sort of work bent the backs of our fathers, while the boys, 

 who did the sowing and the weeding by hand, hated the word 

 "garden." If our grandmothers of 1800 could have their way, 

 they created an offset near the house, wide enough for sweet- 

 williams, grass pinks, marigolds, and a few more old-fash- 

 ioned perennials and annuals. These were almost always bor- 

 dered with grass pinks. A rosebush always stood at the cor- 

 ner of the house, and a mass of "hundred-leaved" roses stood 

 near the gateway. Climbing o\ er the bedroom window was 

 pretty sure to be found a fumitory vine, delicate and beauti- 

 ful ; and not far away a big clump of cinnamon roses. 



There were daffodils and tulips and red peonies in the 

 American garden as far back as 1800, and to these were 

 added white peonies and white lilacs before i8 2<j. I refer of 

 course to their general distribution. In boxes stood often a 

 crimson rose — generally the Sanguinea; and it was not un- 

 common in the thirties to find boxes of hydrangea hortensis. 

 /\t this time the most common shrubs included the snowball — 

 viburnum sterilis — and one ^'ariety of the mock orange. The 

 double-flowering almond is quite as old as this, in dooryards. 

 There were two or three varieties of spirea, and occasionally 

 to be found viburnum opulus. The trumpet honeysuckle, 

 and what was then called the sweet-scented honeysuckle, were 

 carefully trained about a framework in the front yard. So 

 few were these treasures that our mothers became quite 

 skilful in propagating them by layers. 



A little later great lines of shrubbery, running from the 

 front door and flanking a straight walk to the front gate, 

 came out of New England, and marched westward with the 

 pioneers. When T went into Michigan and Wisconsin in the 

 6o's, I sa\v it still moving westward, and the pride of pioneer 

 homes. There are still sorry samples of it in the Eastern 

 States, as well as the Western; although the labor of keeping 

 out the grass and weeds from these narrow strips made their 

 popularity brief. The Persian lilacs, with Josikia, came into 

 our grounds generally about the middle of the nineteenth 

 century. Callosa was added to the spireas, and altheas be- 

 came the pride of choice grounds. Tartarian honeysuckles 

 came a little later, and with them the deutsias. Primroses 

 nestled at the foot of the large shrubs, and it was not uncom- 

 mon to find a bed of the hardy carnations. These were 

 called spice pinks, and are unsurpassed for country grounds 

 even at the present day. 



Cherries and Damson plums were for a long time planted 

 along the fences of the home grounds — a very good plan yet, 



for they make a thick and good windbreak. But when the 

 Green Gage and Magnum Bonum became more common they 

 were allowed places near the house. Red currants, with 

 gooseberries, gradually escaped the long line through the 

 grass plots, where they struggled for existence, and became 

 the foundation of the small fruit garden. This occurred 

 about 1850, although there were a few small fruit gardens at 

 an earlier date — gardens including the quince and grape as 

 well as the raspberry, and very rarely the strawberry. About 

 1850 began to develop a taste for our native shrubs. Bar- 

 berries, dogwoods, the hazel, and many other beautiful things 

 were gathered about the houses. Now began the division of 

 the grounds into small fruit garden, shrubbery, flower gar- 

 den, and orchard. The gardens and orchards were hence- 

 forth to be worked by horse power. 



The opening of Spring was always noted in the early days 

 by two things; our mothers opened their seed drawers, and 

 our fathers took from the storeroom their spiles — made of 

 elder sticks with the pith pushed out. It was time for start- 

 ing seeds In boxes, and for tapping the maple trees. Hot- 

 beds were uncommon. Our mothers always swapped seeds, 

 very generously. They had by 1850 a good supply of sweet 

 peas, nasturtiums, and some of the newer varieties of pinks. 

 The gladiolus was a simple affair, purple and inconspicuous. 

 Its improvement did not begin until about i860. Phloxes 

 by this time had grown very popular, but until 1870 were of 

 two colors only, and no way comparable to our modern 

 varieties. By i8<;o the list of China roses had considerably 

 Increased, and the hybrid perpetuals Included Giant of Battles, 

 John Hopper, and others that are still the honor of our gar- 

 dens. The perennial larkspurs, notably that called the "bee" 

 larkspur, were rapidly disseminated about this time. 



The front yard had been made by running fences directly 

 from the front corners of the house to the street fence. These 

 were made of neat pickets, capped over; and there were 

 always three gates; one into the street, one into the garden, 

 and one into the big dooryard. These had to be kept shut, 

 for pigs and cows haunted the streets, and the gate Into the 

 large yard was seldom shut. This front yard was the glory 

 of the home; as much a matter of pride as the parlor. It 

 contained, beside the great lines of shrubbery that bordered 

 the path, two or three of the rarest trees — such as honey 

 locust, or possibly a green gage plum tree. This front yard 

 vanished about the middle of the century, about the time that 

 the stock laws began to banish the cattle from the streets. 

 Picket fences gave way to the English board fence before 

 iSi^o; this to efforts at hedges, which continued until some- 

 time after 1870. These hedges were first attempted with the 

 English hawthorn ; but this would neither turn cattle nor en- 

 dure our dry hot summers. The buckthorn followed, and 

 still is in some use. The gledltschia came later, and in a few 

 cases the osage orange was adopted in the Eastern States — 

 much more generally In the West. As the stock laws were 

 enforced, it gradually dawned on the people that they could 

 dispense with the cost of both fences and hedges. Grounds 



