THE HORTICULTURIST AND LANDSCAPE GARDENER
Washington's work as a horticulturist prior to the educating influences
of the Revolution was mostly utilitarian. That he had a peach orchard as
early as 1760 is proven by an entry in his diary for February 22: "Laid
in part, the Worm of a fence round the Peach orchard." Just where this
orchard stood I am not quite certain, but it was probably on the slope
near the old tomb.
He learned how to propagate and "wed" his own trees and in 1763 was
particularly active. On March 21st he recorded that he had "Grafted 40
cherries, viz 12 Bullock Hearts, 18 very fine May Cherry, 10 Coronation.
Also grafted 12 Magnum Bonum Plums. Also planted 4 Nuts of the
Mediterranean Pame in the Pen where the Chestnut grows--sticks by East.
Note, the Cherrys and Plums came from Collo. Masons Nuts from Mr.
Gr[een's.] Set out 55 cuttings of the Madeira Grape."
A little later he grafted quinces on pear and apple stocks; also he
grafted "Spanish pairs," "Butter pears," "Bergamy Pears," "Newtown
Pippins," "43 of the Maryland Red Strick," etc., and transplanted
thirty-five young crab scions. These scions he obtained by planting the
pumice of wild crab apples from which cider had been made. They were
supposed to make hardier stocks than those grown from ordinary seeds.
He grafted many cherries, plums, etc., in March, 1764, and yet again in
the spring of 1765, when he put English mulberry scions on wild mulberry
stocks. In that year "Peter Green came to me a Gardener." In 1768 and
1771 he planted grapes in the inclosure below the vegetable garden and
in March, 1775, he again grafted cherries and also planted peach seeds
and seeds of the "Mississippi nut" or pecan.
Long before this he had begun to gather fruits from his early trees and
vines. Being untroubled by San Jose scale and many other pests that now
make life miserable to the fruit grower, he grew fine products and no
doubt enjoyed them.
His esthetic sense was not yet fully developed, but he was always
desirous of having his possessions make a good appearance, and by 1768
was beginning to think of beautifying his grounds. In that year he
expressed a wish that he later carried out, namely to have about his
mansion house every possible specimen of native tree or shrub noted for
beauty of form, leaf or flower.
Even amid the trials of the Revolution this desire was not forgotten. In
1782 he directed Lund Washington, his manager, to plant locusts and
other ornamental trees and shrubs at the ends of the house. He wrote
that such trees would be more likely to live if taken from the open
fields than from the woods because the change of environment would be
less pronounced. To what extent the work was carried I have been unable
to ascertain, for, as elsewhere stated, very little of his
correspondence with his manager during these years survives.
He returned from the Revolution with a strong desire to beautify his
estate, a desire in part due no doubt to seeing beautiful homes
elsewhere and to contact with cultured people, both Americans and
foreigners. One of his first tasks was to rebuild and enlarge his house.
From a small house of eight rooms he transformed Mount Vernon into the
present large mansion, ninety-six feet and four inches long by
thirty-two feet in depth, with two floors and an attic, an immense
cellar and the magnificent portico overlooking the Potomac. The plans
and specifications he drew with his own hands, and those who have
visited the place will hardly deny that the mansion fits well into its
setting and that, architects tell us, is a prime consideration. The
flagstones for the floor of the portico he imported from Whitehaven,
England, and these still remain in place, though many are cracked
or broken.
The portico runs the entire length of the house, is over fourteen feet
deep and its floor is one hundred twenty-four feet ten and one-half
inches above high water-mark, according to calculations made by
Washington himself. From it one commands miles of the Potomac and of the
Maryland shore and there are few such noble prospects in America.
Washington owned a telescope and spy glasses and with them could watch
the movements of ships and boats on the river. The portico was a sort of
trysting place for the family and visitors on summer afternoons and
evenings, and some of the thirty or so Windsor chairs bought for it are
still in existence.
[Illustration: West Front of Mansion House, Showing Bowling Green and
Part of Serpentine Drive]
[Illustration: Experimental Plot, with Servants' Quarters (restored) in
Background]
This was the second time our Farmer reconstructed his house, as in
1758-60 he had made numerous alterations[6]. In 1758 he paid John
Patterson £328.0.5 for work done upon it, and the whole house was pretty
thoroughly renovated and remodeled in preparation for the reception of a
new mistress. In March, 1760, we find the owner contracting with William
Triplett "to build me two houses in front of my house (plastering them
also) and running walls to them from the great house and from the great
house to the washouse and kitchen also." By the "front" he means the
west front, as that part toward the river is really the rear of the
mansion. Hitherto the house had stood detached and these walls were the
originals of the colonnades, still a noticeable feature of the building.
[6] In 1775 a Frenchman was engaged to panel the main hall and apply
stucco ornaments to the ceilings of the parlor and dining-room.
Owing to the absence of a diary of his home activities during 1784 we
can not trace in detail his work that year upon either his house or
grounds, but we know such facts as that he was ordering materials for
the house and that he had his French friend Malesherbes and others
collecting vines and plants for him.
With January 1, 1785, he began a new diary, and from it we ascertain
that on the twelfth, on a ride about his estate, he observed many trees
and shrubs suitable for transplanting. Thereafter he rarely rode out
without noticing some crab, holly, magnolia, pine or other young tree
that would serve his purpose. He was more alive to the beauties of
nature than he had once been, or at least more inclined to comment upon
them. On an April day he notes that "the flower of the Sassafras was
fully out and looked well--an intermixture of this and Red bud I
conceive would look very pretty--the latter crowned with the former or
vice versa." He was no gushing spring poet, but when the sap was
running, the flowers blooming and the birds singing he felt it all in
his heart--perhaps more deeply than do some who say more about it.
On January 19th of this year he began laying out his grounds on a new
plan. This plan, as completed, provided for sunken walls or "Haw has!"
at the ends of the mansion, and on the west front a large elliptical
lawn or bowling green such as still exists there. Along the sides of the
lawn he laid out a serpentine drive or carriage way, to be bordered with
a great variety of shade trees on each side and a "Wilderness" on the
outside. At the extreme west, where the entrance stood, the trees were
omitted so that from the house one could see down a long vista, cut
through the oaks and evergreens, the lodge gate three-quarters of a mile
away. On each side of the opening in the lawn stood a small artificial
mound, and just in front of the house a sun-dial by which each day, when
the weather was clear, he set his watch. A sun-dial stands on the same
spot now but, alas, it is not the original. That was given away or sold
by one of the subsequent owners.
This same spring our Farmer records planting ivy, limes and lindens sent
by his good friend Governor Clinton of New York; lilacs, mock oranges,
aspen, mulberries, black gums, berried thorns, locusts, sassafras,
magnolia, crabs, service berries, catalpas, papaws, honey locusts, a
live oak from Norfolk, yews, aspens, swamp berries, hemlocks, twelve
horse chestnut sent by "Light Horse Harry" Lee, twelve cuttings of tree
box, buckeye nuts brought by him the preceding year from the mouth of
Cheat River, eight nuts from a tree called "the Kentucke Coffee tree," a
row of shell bark hickory nuts from New York, some filberts from "sister
Lewis." His brother John sent him four barrels of holly seeds, which he
sowed in the semicircle north of the front gate; in the south
semicircle, from the kitchen to the south "Haw ha!"; and from the
servants' hall to the north "Haw ha!"
Nor did he neglect more utilitarian work, for in April he grafted many
cherries, pears and other fruit trees. Such work was continued at
intervals till his death.
In raising fruit, as in many other things, he was troubled by the
thieving propensities of the slaves. September tenth of this year he
records that because of the scarcity of apples and the depredations that
were being committed "every Night upon the few I have, I found it
necessary (tho much too early) to gather and put them up for
Winter use."
The spring of 1785 proved an exceptionally dry one and he was forced to
be absent from home several days, leaving the care of the trees and
shrubs to his careless lazy servants. He records that they _said_ that
they watered them according to directions, but he seems to doubt it. At
all events, "Most of my transplanted trees have a sickly look.--The
small Pines in the Wilderness are entirely dead.--The larger ones in the
Walks, for the most part appear to be alive (as yet)--almost the whole
of the Holly are dead--many of the Ivy, wch. before looked healthy &
well seem to be declining--few of the Crab trees had put forth leaves;
not a single Ash tree has unfolded its buds; whether owing to the trees
declining or any other cause, I know not.... The lime trees, which had
some appearance of Budding when I went away, are now withering--and the
Horse chestnut & Tree box from Colo. Harry Lee's discover little signs
of shooting.--the Hemlock is almost entirely dead, & bereft of their
leaves;--and so are the live Oak.--In short half the Trees in the
Shrubberies & many in the Walk are dead & declin[in]g."
Nevertheless he refused to be discouraged and proceeded to plant
forty-eight mahogany tree seeds brought by his nephew, George A.
Washington, from the West Indies. He also set out a "Palmetto Royal" in
the garden and sowed or planted sandbox trees, palmettos, physic nuts,
pride of Chinas, live oaks, accacias, bird peppers, "Caya pepper,"
privet, guinea grass, and a great variety of Chinese grasses, the names
of which, such as _"In che fa," "all san fa" "se lon fa,"_ he gravely
set down in his diary.
The dry weather continued and presently he notes that all the poplars,
black gums and pines, most of the mulberries, all of the crab apples
and papaws, most of the hemlock and sassafras, and several of the cedars
are dead, while the tops of the live oaks are dead but shoots are coming
up from the trunks and roots. The Chinese grasses are in a bad way, and
those that have come up are almost entirely destroyed either by insects
or drought. None of this grass survived the winter, though he took the
trouble to cover it with straw.
During the fall of 1785 and spring of 1786 he sowed the lawn with
English grass seeds, replaced the dead trees in the serpentine walks and
shrubberies, and sent two hundred and fifteen apple trees to his River
Plantation. He made the two low mounds already mentioned and planted
thereon weeping willows. He set out stocks of imported hawthorns, four
yellow jessamines, twenty-five of the Palinurus for hedges, forty-six
pistacia nuts and seventy-five pyramidical cypress, which last were
brought to him by the botanist Michaux from the King of France. As 1786
was one of the wettest summers ever known, his plants and trees lived
better than they had done the preceding year.
During this period and until the end of his life he was constantly
receiving trees and shrubs from various parts of the world. Thus in
1794 he sent to Alexandria by Thomas Jefferson a bundle of "Poccon
[pecan] or Illinois nut," which in some way had come to him at
Philadelphia. He instructed the gardener to set these out at Mount
Vernon, also to sow some seeds of the East India hemp that had been left
in his care. The same year thirty-nine varieties of tropical plants,
including the bread fruit tree, came to him from a well wisher in
Jamaica. At other times he sowed seeds of the cucumber tree, chickory
and "colliflower" and planted ivy and wild honeysuckle. Again he once
more planted pecans and hickory nuts. It can hardly be that at his
advanced age he expected to derive any personal good from either of
these trees, but he was very fond of nuts, eating great quantities for
dessert, and the liking inclined him to grow trees that produced them.
In this, as in many other matters, he planted for the benefit of
posterity.
In order to care for his exotic plants he built adjoining the upper
garden a considerable conservatory or hothouse. In this he placed many
of the plants sent to him as presents and also purchased many others
from the collection of the celebrated botanist, John Bartram, at
Philadelphia. The structure, together with the servants' quarters
adjoining, was burned down in December, 1835, and when the historian
Lossing visited Mount Vernon in 1858 nothing remained of these buildings
except bare walls crumbling to decay. Of the movable plants that had
belonged to Washington there remained in 1858 only a lemon tree, a
century plant and a sago palm, all of which have since died. The
conservatory and servants' quarters have, however, been rebuilt and the
conservatory restocked with plants such as Washington kept in it. The
buildings probably look much as they did in his time.
One of the sights to-day at Mount Vernon is the formal garden, which all
who have visited the place will remember. Strangely enough it seems
impossible to discover exactly when this was laid out as it now stands.
The guides follow tradition and tell visitors that Washington set out
the box hedge, the principal feature, after his marriage, and that he
told Martha that she should be mistress of this flower garden and he the
master of the vegetable garden. It is barely possible that he did set
out the hedges at that time, but, if so, it must have been in 1759, for
no mention is made of it in the diary begun in 1760. In April, 1785, we
find by his diary that he planted twelve cuttings of the "tree box" and
again in the spring of 1787 he planted in his shrubberies some holly
trees, "also ... some of the slips of the tree box." But of box hedges I
can find no mention in any of the papers I have seen. One guess is about
as good as another, and I am inclined to believe that if they were
planted in his time, it was done during his presidency by one of his
gardeners, perhaps Butler or the German, Ehler. They may have been set
out long after his death. At all events the garden was modeled after the
formal gardens of Europe and the idea was not original with him.
East of the formal garden lies a plot of ground that he used for
agricultural experiments. The vegetable garden was south of the Bowling
Green and separated from it by a brick wall. Here utility was lord and a
great profusion of products was raised for the table. Washington took an
interest in its management and I have found an entry in his diary
recording the day that green peas were available for the first time that
year. Evidently he was fond of them.
The bent of our Farmer's mind was to the practical, yet he took pride in
the appearance of his estate. "I shall begrudge no reasonable expense
that will contribute to the improvement and neatness of my farms," he
wrote one of his managers, "for nothing pleases me better than to see
them in good order, and everything trim, handsome, and thriving about
them; nor nothing hurts me more than to find them otherwise."
Live hedges tend to make a place look well and it was probably this and
his passion for trees that caused Washington to go in extensively for
hedges about his farms. They took the place of wooden fences and saved
trees and also grew more trees and bushes. His ordinary course in
building a fence was to have a trench dug on each side of the line and
the dirt thrown toward the center. Upon the ridge thus formed he built a
post and rail fence and along it planted cedars, locusts, pines, briars
or thorn bushes to discourage cattle and other stock. The trenches not
only increased the efficiency of the fence but also served as ditches.
In many places they are still discernible. The lines of the hedges are
also often marked in many places by trees which, though few or none can
be the originals, are descended from the roots or seeds of those trees.
Cedar and locust trees are particularly noticeable.
[Illustration: First page of the Diary for 1760]
In 1794 our Farmer had five thousand white thorn sent from England for
hedge purposes, but they arrived late in the spring and few survived and
even these did not thrive very well. Another time he sent from
Philadelphia two bushels of honey locust seed to be planted in his
nursery. These are only instances of his activities in this direction.
Much of what he undertook as a planter of trees failed for one reason or
another, most of all because he attended to the business of his country
at the expense of his own, but much that he attempted succeeded and
enough still remains to enable us to realize that by his efforts he made
his estate attractive. He was no Barbarian or Philistine. He had a sense
of beauty and it is only in recent years that his countrymen, absorbed
in material undertakings, have begun to appreciate the things that he
was enjoying so long ago.
"The visitor at Mount Vernon still finds a charm no art alone could
give, in trees from various climes, each a witness of the taste that
sought, or the love that sent them, in fields which the desolating step
of war reverently passed by, in flowers whose root is not in graves, yet
tinged with the lifeblood of the heart that cherished them from
childhood to old age. On those acres we move beneath the shade or
shelter of the invisible tree which put forth whatever meets the eye,
and has left some sign on each object, large or small. Still planted
beside his river, he brings forth fruit in his season. Nor does his
leaf wither."