ersonal good from either of
these trees, but he was very fond of nuts, eating great quantities for
dessert, and the liking inclined him to grow trees that produced them.
In this, as in many other matters, he planted for the benefit of
posterity.

In order to care for his exotic plants he built adjoining the upper
garden a considerable conservatory or hothouse. In this he placed many
of the plants sent to him as presents and also purchased many others
from the collection of the celebrated botanist, John Bartram, at
Philadelphia. The structure, together with the servants' quarters
adjoining, was burned down in December, 1835, and when the historian
Lossing visited Mount Vernon in 1858 nothing remained of these buildings
except bare walls crumbling to decay. Of the movable plants that had
belonged to Washington there remained in 1858 only a lemon tree, a
century plant and a sago palm, all of which have since died. The
conservatory and servants' quarters have, however, been rebuilt and the
conservatory restocked with plants such as Washington kept in it. The
buildings probably look much as they did in his time.

One of the sights to-day at Mount Vernon is the formal garden, which all
who have visited the place will remember. Strangely enough it seems
impossible to discover exactly when this was laid out as it now stands.
The guides follow tradition and tell visitors that Washington set out
the box hedge, the principal feature, after his marriage, and that he
told Martha that she should be mistress of this flower garden and he the
master of the vegetable garden. It is barely possible that he did set
out the hedges at that time, but, if so, it must have been in 1759, for
no mention is made of it in the diary begun in 1760. In April, 1785, we
find by his diary that he planted twelve cuttings of the "tree box" and
again in the spring of 1787 he planted in his shrubberies some holly
trees, "also ... some of the slips of the tree box." But of box hedges I
can find no mention in any of the papers I have seen. One guess is about
as good as another, and I am inclined to believe that if they were
planted in his time, it was done during his presidency by one of his
gardeners, perhaps Butler or the German, Ehler. They may have been set
out long after his death. At all events the garden was modeled after the
formal gardens of Europe and the idea was not original with him.

East of the formal garden lies a plot of ground that he used f