12 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
were not, that it would occur to the colonists to bring 
them here. The plants most prized at home would 
be the ones most likely to be transported; and it is 
rarely a native wild flower that occupies so exalted a 
position with any people, as we well know ourselves. 
The character of the people in the various sections 
under which we have undertaken to consider them in 
relation to their garden making, exercised a very de¬ 
cided influence on the character of the gardens which 
ultimately developed in the different locales. The 
planters of Virginia came from a stock altogether unlike 
that of the Puritans of Plymouth, while the thrifty 
Dutch of Manhattan possessed virtues which neither 
of the others knew, albeit they had vices quite as ob¬ 
jectionable, no doubt. And Virginia, as might have 
been expected, became a land of broad expanses, of 
great estates, of landed gentry with many servants and 
the pleasures and follies of their kind; while Plymouth 
and the Massachusetts Colony was a land of small 
possessions, of closer dwelling for safety’s sake, of 
stern industry on the part of every individual, with 
few to serve, and of little pleasure; and the New Neth¬ 
erlands was like neither, for it lacked the spaciousness 
of the first and the fanaticism of the second, yet here 
were farms, and industry unparalleled, common to 
masters and servants alike, thrift, a full measure of 
good times, and a decided indulgence in a certain taste 
