164 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
that there would be. And we need not expect to 
find one for another decade or more. By 1635-40, 
however, they are beginning, here and there, in the 
English Colonies both north and south; and of course 
they are continuing as they had previously been begun, 
in New Netherland. This sets the remotest limit of 
our gardens therefore, with fair certainty, at two hun¬ 
dred and seventy-five years ago. 
For the near line, before which all shall be regarded 
as unfit to rank with the truly old, common consent 
seems to have fixed the close of the Revolution. But 
as General Washington did not lay out his gardens at 
Mount Vernon until 1783, I do not see how we shall 
accept only the Colonial era and exclude all that lies 
this side of it. And the gardens of Jefferson at 
Monticello were even later than this. So I shall place 
the forward limit at one hundred years ago and include 
these. Which gives us a period of one hundred and 
seventy-five years for our old-fashioned gardens—a 
very respectable interval, considering that our country 
is young. 
With this much definitely settled, we know at once 
just what flowers may be admitted; and we know 
that no thought in gardening which shaped itself since 
Thomas Jefferson was Chief Executive, may intrude. 
Many flowers and some ideas which have long been 
held old-fashioned, will have to move out of the list; 
