. The home of Washington; or, Mount Vernon and its associations, historical, biographical, and pictorial . e western front an oval grass-plot was designed,with a dial-post in the centre, and a carriage-way around it. The lawn, the oval grass-plot, and the gardens were laid outaccording to the plan drawn by Washington, and remainunchanged in form. Quite a large number of trees, plantedalong the margins of the carriage-way, at that time, are yetthere, and are noble specimens of their kind. Many othershave decayed and passed away; and, in some instances, quitelarge trees now stand where others we
. The home of Washington; or, Mount Vernon and its associations, historical, biographical, and pictorial . e western front an oval grass-plot was designed,with a dial-post in the centre, and a carriage-way around it. The lawn, the oval grass-plot, and the gardens were laid outaccording to the plan drawn by Washington, and remainunchanged in form. Quite a large number of trees, plantedalong the margins of the carriage-way, at that time, are yetthere, and are noble specimens of their kind. Many othershave decayed and passed away; and, in some instances, quitelarge trees now stand where others were planted by the handof Washington three-quarters of a century ago. In each garden Washington erected small houses, of octag-onal form, for the storage of seeds and implements of hor-ticulture. These are yet standing. Tlie lower portion of eachis of brick, and the remainder of plank, wrought so as toresemble blocks of stone. These garden-houses, and water-closets of similar form and dimensions, standing on the bordersof the garden near the mansion, are now [1859] fallen into AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 157. GAKDEK-HOUSE. almost hopeless decaj. The massive brick walls around bothgardens remain in perfect preservation. On the north side of the flower-garden Washington erectedquite an extensive conservatory for plants, into which he col-lected many rare exotics. Some of them were presented tohim as testimonials of esteem, and others were purchased atthe garden of John Bartram, near Philadelphia. Bartramwas a member of the Society of Friends, and an eminentbotanist. He had died during the Revolution, leaving hisbusiness in the able hands of his son William, who, in 1791,published a most interesting account of his botanical explora-tions through the Southern states of our Union. 158 MOUNT YERNON A few tropical plants found their way to the Potomac oc-casionally, upon vessels from the West Indies. Among thelatter, on one occasion, were some fine lemon-trees of large
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