Colonial Garden-making ag 
appear in the hedges and edgings of Box ; one 
symmetrical great Box tree is fifty Feet in circumfer- 
ence. Flowering shrubs, unkempt of shape, bloom 
and beautify the waste borders each spring, as do the 
oldest Chinese Magnolias in the United States. 
Gingkos, Paulownias, and weeping trees, which need 
no gardener’s care, also flourish and are of unusual 
size. There are some splendid evergreens, such as 
Mt. Atlas Cedars ; and the oldest and finest Cedar 
of Lebanon in the United States. It seemed sad, 
as I looked at the evidences of so much past beauty 
and present decay, that this historic house and gar- 
den- should not be preserved for New York, as the 
house and garden of John Bartram, the Philadelphia 
botanist, have been for his native city. 
While there are few direct records of American 
gardens in the eighteenth century, we have many in- 
structing side glimpses through old business letter- 
books. We find Sir Harry Frankland ordering 
Daffodils and Tulips for the garden he made for 
Agnes Surriage ; and it is said that the first Lilacs 
ever seen in Hopkinton were planted by him for 
her. The gay young nobleman and the lovely 
woman are in the dust, and of all the beautiful 
things belonging to them there remain a splendid 
Portuguese fan, which stands as a memorial of that 
tragic crisis in their life — the great Lisbon earth- 
quake ; and the Lilacs, which still mark the site of 
her house and blossom each spring as a memorial of 
the shadowed romance of her life in New England. 
Let me give two pages from old letters to illus- 
trate what I mean by side glimpses at the contents 
