OF BEGINNINGS 
n 
white black and red, being almost as good as a dam¬ 
son”—he closes the list gravely, in his matter-of-fact 
way, with the self-revealing phrase, “abundance of 
roses, white, red and damask; single, but very sweet 
indeed.” 
It is of course obvious that gardens, as we conceive 
and know them, could not exist until inroads had been 
made upon the wilderness. And it is equally obvious 
that until both wilderness and savage had been sub¬ 
dued to a considerable degree, little thought could be 
given to the cultivation of any plant that had no def¬ 
inite economic value. Here and there a single flower 
undoubtedly, brought across the many leagues of sea, 
was watched and tended carefully by a homesick 
woman, not for its own loveliness perhaps—the wil¬ 
derness offered beauty in abundance, new and strange 
—but for her homesickness, because it spake of home. 
And precious seeds of well loved favorites were com¬ 
mitted to the strange earth in little patches here and 
there; gilliflowers, probably, and carnations—these 
“the queen of delights and flowers” according to the 
great Parkinson—sweet Williams, sweet Johns, holly¬ 
hocks perhaps; and without doubt some bulbs, though 
there would not have been space to bring many at 
first. We may easily infer however that common wild 
flowers were not among the early comers; for it would 
not be until they had grown precious because they 
