120 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
round, though they are sad ones.” Evidently round 
pales or pickets were very little to his liking, for some 
reason or other! 
The nineteenth of the third month, 1685, he writes, 
“I like all thou hast sent me. I hope they go on with 
the houses and the gardens and let them finish all 
that which is built as fast as they can. . . . Let 
Ralph this fall get twenty young poplars of about 18 
inches round, beheaded to twenty feet, to plant in the 
walk below the steps to the water.” Two months 
later, “tell Ralph I must depend on his perfecting his 
gardens—hay dust” (seed 4 ?) “from Long Island, such 
as I sowed in my courtyard, is the best for our fields. 
I will send divers seeds for gardens and fields. About 
the house may be laid out into fields and grass which 
is sweet and pleasant.” Three months go by and then 
he writes, “I hear poor Ralph is dead. Let Nicholas 
then follow it diligently and I will reward him. 
. . . . By this ship I purpose to send some haws, 
hazle-nuts, walnuts, garden seeds, &c.” 
Another letter says, “I would have Nicholas have 
as many roots and flowers next spring by transplant¬ 
ing them out of the woods, as he can.” This bit of 
direction is especially interesting as being the first evi¬ 
dence of the use, in any garden, of the wild native 
flowers which grew in such profusion. Penn appre¬ 
ciated the beauty of these so keenly, however, upon 
