Stranica 324 [324]
THE POTOMAC AND RAPPAHANNOCK
slips of the Persian Jessamine and Guelder Rose.’ A month
later, Colonel Mason wrote from Gunston Hall to General Wash¬
ington, sending him a present of some cider. He had, he says,
broached four or five hogsheads, and filled the bottles with the
best, all being made of Maryland Redstreaks. ‘“‘The cider this
year is not so clear and fine,” he tells his friend, and he wonders
if grinding his apples late in the fall is the cause, and adds, “As
the cider in bottles will not ripen for use until late in May, I have
also filled a barrel out of the same, which I beg your acceptance
of.’ He recommended that a little ginger should be put in, as it
improves cider. At another time he sent Washington some water¬
melon seed, which he had promised him.
In the flower garden at Gunston are masses of heliotrope, phlox,
delphinium, lemon verbena, rose geranium, ageratum, foxglove and
many roses. In the fall the hardy chrysanthemums produce a riot
of color.
In the center of the garden plays a bird fountain, made from
the capitol and base of a discarded column from the United States
Treasury building at Washington. This was found in a vacant
plot in Washington, where it had lain for years. On its base it
bears the date 1840. It is made of sandstone from the long since
abandoned quarries of Aquia Creek, from which also were made
the quoins of the Gunston house.
An arched brick step leads to the Falls: Walk, skirting the crest
of the hill, from whence a sudden declivity leads to the lower field,
which, in Mason s day, was a deer-park, studded with trees. [he
Falls Walk leads on to the dock, whence a recently constructed
canal connects with the Potomac.
From the east end of the garden a lilac-bordered path leads
toward the lawn, parallel to the spacious double walk, bordered
by flowering cherry trees, under whose shade, in center beds, the
spring bulbs bloom. |
The bowling green, to the east of the box-walk, almost square
in form, is enclosed by pleached fruit trees, and flowering shrubs;
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