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GUNSTON HALL
SEEZESS UNSTON-HALL - ON - THE - POTOMAC, five
miles below Mount Vernon and eighteen miles
below Washington, the home of George Mason, of
Revolutionary days, was built by him in the years
E75 5 TO. 7S:
The south front of the mansion faces the
Potomac. From a little portico on this front one looks toward the
river, between two rows of English box ( Buxus Suffruticosa), twice
the height of a tall man, and two hundred and twenty feet long.
This avenue leads directly to a terrace overlooking wide stretches
of meadows, interspersed and bordered with forest trees and com¬
manding a view across the broad Potomac to the hills of Mary¬
land beyond.
Doubtless it was Colonel Mason’s intention, when he planted
this box hedge (the slips of which were probably brought from
England), to keep it trimmed in the low, formal style then cus¬
tomary, with a spacious walk between its rows. Through many years
of neglect, the hedge was not trimmed, and, with soil apparently
ideal for its growth, it has reached its present great height and
beautiful form. A leading authority in this country estimates the
box at Gunston Hall to be about forty years older than the box at
Mount Vernon. Possibly, slips from the Gunston Hall box were .
sent to Mount Vernon to start the lovely planting of box there, for
exchanges were frequently made, as we learn from Washington's
diary, in which he acknowledges additions to his flowers and fruits
from his friend, George Mason, at Gunston Hall. In 1763, Wash¬
ington writes of “grafting cherries and plums from Colonel
Mason’s.”’ Again in 1785, Mason, after spending the night at
Mount Vernon, was sent by Washington back to Gunston Hall in
his coach, “‘by return of which,’ adds Washington, “he sent me
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