Page 324 [324]
OCR
THE POTOMAC AND RAPPAHANNOCK slips of the Persian Jessamine and Guelder Rose.’ A month later, Colonel Mason wrote from Gunston Hall to General Washington, 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 watermelon 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; [199]
