Stranica 312 [312]
THE POTOMAC AND RAPPAHANNOCK
the twenty-five hundred acres he inherited from his brother, he
already had inherited the paternal estate on the Rappahannock,
and to those he added fifty-five hundred acres, making him one of
the wealthiest planters and land-owners in Virginia, having many
thousand acres of the finest land along the Rappahannock and
Potomac. Mrs. Washington was, also, wealthy, having a large
fortune in land and money, while her two children inherited com¬
fortable fortunes from their father, Daniel Parke Custis. Wash¬
ington's own description of his home is interesting:
"A high healthy country, in a latitude between the
extreme of heat and cold, on one of the finest rivers in the
world, a river well stocked with various kinds of fish, at all
seasons of the year, and in the spring the shad, herring,
bass, carp, sturgeon, etc., in abundance. The borders of the
estate are washed for more than ten miles by tidewater,
several valuable fisheries appertaining to it, the whole shore,
in fact, one entire fishery.”
The plans and specifications for the house, the design for the
grounds, the survey of the roads and gardens are all in existence,
drawn by Washington’s own hand. Every measurement was cal¬
culated and indicated with an engineer’s exactness, and in every
arrangement for his home, he appears to have made convenience
and durability the prime objects of his planning.
As this article is on the garden of Mount Vernon, and not on
the house, let us join the young engineer, and imagine him with his
loved dogs—True Love, Sweet Lips, Mopsy, Music, and Rover—
at his heels as he steps out in an early hour before breakfast to
look over his estate.
On the river side is an undulating lawn, sloping gently with a
slight rise at each end. On the points overlooking the river were
summer-houses, resting places from which to admire the river or
to watch the activities on the small wharf. Under the southeast
summer-house, during Washington’s time, there was a large, dry
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