WASHINGTON’S GARDEN 
ing paths and framed vistas are as Washington planned 
them. His, too, the prim box-hedges and such of 
the walls as remain. Behind the greenhouses, in the 
past, stretched the long straight rows of flowers where 
Mrs. Washington gathered basketsful of blooms for 
the house; here, too, were her savory herbs, and a bush 
or two of lavender. 
Very lovely the old wall is now, with its soft tones 
of gray and rose and cream, where the shrubbery 
reaches high, lifting its blossoms above the coping. The 
paths are bordered with narrow beds of flowers, and 
there are many other straight long beds that are a mass 
of color and fragrance, and vocal with the hum of bees. 
Contemporary letters and sketches give many a view 
of the General, clad in sober drab costume and wide- 
brimmed hat, riding or tramping about the estate. Judg- 
ing from notes in his diary and letters of his own, he 
was far more interested in the fields and farms than in 
the flower garden proper. Nevertheless, he notes on a 
certain January io, that “The white-thorn is full in 
berry,” and also remarks that he has been planting 
holly. Beyond much doubt, however, it was Martha 
Washington who had the chief care of the more deco¬ 
rative part of the homestead. She it was who filled the 
beds with seeds and roots in the spring, and cut the 
fresh flowers, or clipped off the faded ones in summer. 
That was woman’s work, and though the General was 
fain to wander among the roses with a keen pleasure in 
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