Colonial Garden-making 
3 
dwelling-places, were they but humble log cabins; 
and pasture lands and commons were portioned 
out ; and in a short time all had garden-plots, and 
thus, with sheltering roof-trees, and warm firesides, 
and with gardens, even in this lonely new world, 
they had homes . The first entry in the Plymouth 
Records is a significant one ; it is the assignment 
of cc Meresteads and Garden-Plotes,” not mere- 
steads alone, which were farm lands, but home 
gardens : the outlines of these can still be seen in 
Plymouth town. And soon all sojourners who bore 
news back to England of the New-Englishmen and 
New-Englishwomen, told of ample store of gardens. 
Ere a year had passed hopeful John Winthrop 
wrote, “ My Deare Wife, wee are here in a Para- 
dise/' In four years the chronicler Wood said in 
his New England's Prospect , “There is growing here 
all manner of herbs for meat and medicine, and that 
not only in planted gardens, but in the woods, with- 
out the act and help- of man/’ Governor Endicott 
had by that time a very creditable garden. 
And by every humble dwelling the homesick 
goodwife or dame, trying to create a semblance of 
her fair English home so far away, planted in her 
“ garden plot ” seeds and roots of homely English 
flowers and herbs, that quickly grew and blossomed 
and smiled on bleak New England’s rocky shores 
as sturdily and happily as they had bloomed in the 
old gardens and by the ancient door sides in Eng- 
land. What good cheer they must have brought! 
how they must have been beloved ! for these old 
English garden flowers are such gracious things ; 
