32 
OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
wigs, a tailor to keep their clothes, and a drummer 
for why, who shall guess'? 
This was the debonair handful which came to found 
a tributary state, to lay, all unawares, the foundations 
of a new nation, to build homes and gardens in the 
deep reaches of the wilderness that they first must con¬ 
quer. Not what could be called a likely seeming crew 
for the task—dandies and gallants, fearless and daunt¬ 
less, to be sure, but gentlemen adventurers of a truth, 
unskilled in the use of any implements save those of 
fighting, men of activity and action, impetuous, im¬ 
patient and imperious. 
On across the great Chesapeake they sailed, and into 
the mouth of that loveliest of rivers the Powhatan by 
ancient right and savage kingship, but thenceforth to 
be the James, for their king, according to the invaders. 
And thus, up the water-way of the Indian, came the 
pale-face civilization. And they worked, of a surety, 
in those early days, every man doing a man’s share, vel¬ 
vet breeches or no; worked so well that within two 
weeks of their arrival, the first sowing of wheat at the 
Plantation of Jamestown had been made. Following 
this “a garden was laid off, and the seeds of fruits and 
vegetables not indigenous to the country, were 
planted. 
But the charter under which the London Company 
was permitted to colonize, stipulated that for five years 
