THE PRESIDENTS’ GARDENS 141 
am able to do at present to situations of this kind, 
which combine utility, ornament and amusement—I 
shall certainly avail myself of the liberty you have 
authorized me to take, in requesting a small supply of 
such exotics, as, with a little aid may be reconciled to 
the climate of my garden.” The greenhouses which 
he built were burned in 1835, an d their contents, save 
three plants alone—a lemon tree, a sago palm and a 
century plant—of course perished. The buildings 
were rebuilt in the same place, along the north side 
of the garden, and on the same lines—but the houses 
at the eastern end are later, and not a part of the 
General’s plan. 
Curiously shaped and divided are the compartments 
in the north garden—and both gardens are curiously 
formed. I would give a good deal to know just why 
these unsymmetrical and apparently arbitrary patterns 
were adopted—and why the little, trifling, yet very evi¬ 
dent variations exist in the general outer form of the 
two gardens. Certainly they were not variations by 
chance, for the exactness of the plan wherever Wash¬ 
ington wished it to be exact, is beautiful; moreover, 
he was an engineer of skill, as well as a man of most 
careful and accurate method, and no such chance hap¬ 
pening would be even remotely possible, either in his 
drawing or his execution. So it must remain a mys¬ 
tery, unless, as tradition has it, the great order 
