AUSTERE PURITAN GARDENS 
99 
which it was proposed to build. Here it was jointly 
agreed that each of the inhabitants should have a two- 
acre lot. This more liberal allowance no doubt took 
into consideration the dignity which it was desirable 
a town of such proportions should have, as well as the 
likelihood of the residents having only their town plot, 
with no fields beyond the settlement. 
The gardens of all this period were what gar- 
dens commonly are to-day—kitchen gardens. Now 
and then a reference is thus specifically made, as in 
Wood’s “New England Prospect”: “The ground 
affords very good kitchen-gardens for turnips, pars¬ 
nips, carrots, radishes and pumpions, mush-melons, 
isquoukersquashes, cucumbers, onions: and whatever 
grows well in England grows as well there, many 
things being better and larger.” A writer of 1671 
says that “the quinces, cherries, damsons set the dames 
awork. Marmalad and preserved damsons is to be 
met with in every house. Our fruit trees prosper 
abundantly, apple trees, pear trees, quince trees, cherry 
trees, plum trees, barberry trees, I have observed with 
admiration that the kernels sown or the succors 
planted produce as fair and good fruit without graft¬ 
ing as the tree from whence they were taken. The 
country is replenished with fair and good orchards.” 
Josselyn enumerates principally the kitchen garden 
products, interspersing them with grains and a few 
