Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-08-24

kitchen garden on the other side of the
bowling green" The house was only q
the gardens were nil. Hanging In the Ii
brary of the mansion house are the plans
for the gardens, drawn by Washington's
own hand, with every tree and shrub In
the grounds indicated by name, exactly as
they stand now, and after he had supped
his fill Of honors he began to put into ex-
ecutlon those plans for embellishing and
identifying his spacious grounds at Mt.
Vernon.
GeOmetrical Measurements.
Washington must have chained the
grounds of with the aid of compass, and
marked the ''metes and bounds with I'M
erring accuracy, for anything moro dis
tressingly regular than the arrangement
could not be imagined. He had added two
wings to the villa, and then named 1t the
Mansion" and he built two curved colon
.nades-one on each side, Joined, one to the
Kitchen on the south, and the other to its
twin, the spinning house. on the north, and
they are In turn balanced by buildings as
like as two peas, and so on, down to the
very garden walls on each side-kitchen
the north. The flower garden, as has been
stated, stands Just as it did on that long
ago December day when Washington died
From Old Walls.
The walls of this garden are of brick,
brought from England and put together
with "oyster-shelp' cement They have
been capped with a row Of new brick as a
kind Of foundation for a wooden paling
which has been put up, but that is all the
change that has been made. The bricks
look so awfully old that the Star writer
poked them with an umbrella to see if they
would crumble, much to the merriment of
the colored servitor-not one of the body
servants Of Washington-who was watering
the plants In the garden.
"LaWd Dress you, honey chile, dat ar
fence gwine stan dere long arter you dun
gon to dus'. Deed hit ar.
Deed, I reckon hit war de gineral his
SELF" was the prompt reply to the question
Of grubbin roun'," went on the old fellow
He set out dem trees by de gate an de
ole pear trees you dun JUS pass, an all dis
heah box"
Box Everywhere.
Just at the entrance to the flower garden
are four splendid great big trees, two ash
and two tulip trees. Washington planted
them with his own hands, and they grew
thrifty and strong under his fostering care.
They form perfect square as they stand
Inside the brick wall is row of box
and wide path all around the garden, and
next to that comes another row of the box,
about four feet high and yard across the
top, cut as smooth as u piece of cheese and
as square up and down as though evened
with square and level. 1t was just so that
washington left It, Inside this green
leaved wall are the quaint geometrfc de-
signs, which great many people believe
hold hidden meanings-a kind of Baconian
cipher, perhaps, which has never yet
yielded up it's secret. Some say 1t tells Ma
sonic secrets, and others see in 1t initials.
To The Star writer they looked though
the French GARDINER whom Washington
imported, contrary to the alien labor law,
to do the fancy work in his gardens had
undertaken to grow flower pots. There
are squares and triangles, oblongs and odd
little circles of neatly shaved box, which
look for all the world like small green
painted wash tubs, in which nasturtiums
and cannas. "old man. and cosmos and
quantities of other plants are struggling for
life. All that box has been standing there
Tor century and a quarter nearly and its
roots have grown out and over the garden,
till few inches below the surface there is
whole lumber yard of lockwood, which
saps the moisture and eats the nourshment
from the soil till it Is a wonder that the
poor little flowers can grow at all. But
they do, and they smile up at you just as