GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 41 
plenty, of magnificence! There was room and to 
spare, and abundance; and their ideas and ideals took 
shape accordingly. There were no small grants, nor 
cottage homes, nor cottage gardens. Only manor 
lands and great park-like inclosures could satisfy the 
taste of people like these. 
It is well past the middle of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury, however, before there appears any evidence of a 
general concern for the finer and nicer things of the 
garden. Undoubtedly the gardens, such as they were, 
had been there for many years; but these were the 
ruder gardens of vegetables as well as flowers. It 
is not likely that much attempt had been made as yet 
toward definite garden design. The plantation yard 
was just a partly shaded, irregular open field whereon 
the dwelling stood. The grass of this was the same 
as any meadow showed, and the live-stock grazing 
about it afforded the only restriction to its growth. 
Near the house and conveniently located, was the 
garden, always fenced or railed or paled to keep out 
the hogs and cattle—and here grew the vegetables for 
the family, and such flowers as there was room for. 
Of these there were “gillyflowers” (this meant 
carnation pinks rather than what we now know as 
gilliflowers), “holly hocks, sweet bryer, lavender cot¬ 
ton, white satten or honestie, English roses, fether few 
(feverfew), comferie (comfrey), celandine”; and 
