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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 commanding a view across the broad Potomac to the hills of Maryland 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 customary, 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, Washington 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 [198 ]
