THE PRESIDENTS’ GARDENS 151 
bloom from early spring to late fall—or indeed, to 
late winter, according to his superintendent. Un¬ 
doubtedly the collection was exceptionally fine, for he 
had exceptional opportunities for collecting. During 
his residences abroad, the thought of Monticello and 
his garden was ever in his mind; and plants and 
agriculture were ever his hobby, although he was 
usually more utilitarian than esthetic in his taste, as 
a matter of fact. “The greatest service which can be 
rendered to any country,” said he, “is to add a useful 
plant to its culture.” And again, “Cultivators of the 
earth are the most valuable citizens.” Wherefore he 
imported olive plants from Marseilles to South Caro¬ 
lina and Georgia, and heavy upland rice from Africa, 
hoping that it might take the place of the wet rice so 
difficult and unhealthy to cultivate in the hot summer. 
And he worked and cultivated industriously. 
Quantities of shrubbery were purchased by him from 
a nursery in George Town, and of every specimen in 
every part of his grounds he kept a close trace. Direc¬ 
tions which he sent, along with one shipment, are char¬ 
acteristic of his interest, and his knowledge of his trees. 
“If weather is not open and soft when Davy arrives,” 
he writes—it is November twenty-fourth—“put the 
box of thorns into the cellar where they may be free 
from the influence of cold until weather becomes soft 
when they must be planted in the places of those dead 
