CHAPTER III. MONTICELLO. THE MOUNTAIN, MANSION, GROUNDS, FLOWERS, SHRUBBERY, TERRACED GARDEN -FRUIT, VEGETABLES-LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS FROM WASHINGTON IN REGARD TO STOCK, CROPS, ACCOUNTS, SHRUBBERY, ETC.-THE ESTATE-DIFFERENT PLANTATIONS-PREMIUMS TO OVERSEERS AND SERVANTS-COPY OF MR. JEFFERSON'S INSTRUCTIONS ON LEAVING HOME FOR WASHINGTON. CAPT. BACON says:-"Monticello is quite a high mountain, in the shape of a sugar-loaf. A winding road led up to the mansion. On the very top of the mountain the forest trees were cut down, and ten acres were cleared and levelled off. This was done before I went to live with Mr. Jefferson. The house in the picture that you showed me, (Frontispiece,) is upon the highest point. That picture is perfectly natural. I knew every room in that house. Under the house and the terraces that surrounded it, were his cisterns, ice-house, cellar, kitchen, and rooms for all sorts of purposes. His servants' rooms were on one side. They were very comfortable, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Then there were rooms for vegetables, fruit, cider, wood, and every other purpose. There were no negro and other out-houses around the mansion, as you generally see on plantations. The grounds around the house were most beautifully ornamented with flowers and shrubbery. There were walks, and borders, and flowers, that I have never seen or heard of anywhere else. Some of them were in bloom from early in the spring until late in the winter. A good many of them were foreign. Back of the house was a beautiful lawn of two or three acres, where his grandchildren used to play a great deal. His garden was on the side of the mountain. I had it built mostly while he was President. It took a great deal of labor. We had to blow out the rock for the walls for the dif ferent terraces, and then make the soil. I have some of the instructions that Mr. Jefferson sent me from Washington now. It was a fine garden. There were vegetables of all kinds, grapes, figs, and the greatest variety of fruit. I have never seen such a place for fruit. It was so high that it never failed. Mr. Jefferson sent home a great many kinds of trees and shrubbery from Washington. I used to send a servant there with a great many fine things from Monticello for his table, and he would send back the cart loaded with shrubbery from a nur sery near Georgetown, that belonged to a man named Maine, and he would always send me direc LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS. 39 tions what to do with it. He always knew all about every thing in every part of his grounds and garden. He knew the name of every tree, and just where one was dead or missing. Here is a letter that he sent me from Washington: "WASHINGTON, Nov. 24, 1807. "SIR, Davy has been detained till now, the earth having been so frozen that the plants could not be dug up. On the next leaf are instructions what to do with them, in addition to which I inclose Mr. Maine's instructions as to the thorns. He brings a couple of Guinea pigs, which I wish you to take great care of, as I propose to get this kind into the place of those we have now, as I greatly prefer their size and form. I think you had better keep them in some inclosure near your house till spring. I hope my sheep are driven up every night, and carefully attended to. The finishing every thing about the mill, is what I wish always to have a preference to every kind of work. Next to that, my heart is most set on finishing the gar den. I have promised Mr. Craven that nothing shall run next year in the meadow inclosure, where his clearing will be. This is necessary for our selves, that we may mow the clover and feed it green. I have hired the same negroes for another year, and am promised them as long as I want them. Stewart must be immediately dismissed. If he will do those jobs I mentioned before he goes, he may stay to do them, and have provisions while about them. Joe work in the way you proposed, so that the whole concern may be together. I place here the statement of debts and remittances: may 666 'By these remittances and payments made and to be made, you will perceive that the whole will LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS. 41 be paid off by the first week in February. Mr. Craven called on me the 17th, with your order to pay him $100 the first week in December; but he said you would receive $200 of his money, and that he should be extremely distressed if he could not get the whole sum here. On that I gave him my note to pay $200 to his order the first week of next month, and you are to use his $200 instead of what I intended to remit you at that time. Last night I received from Mr. Kelly your order to pay him $133. To reconcile these two transac tions, you can use $100 of Craven's money towards paying the debts. Pay Mr. Kelly $100 of it, in part of your order on me, and I will remit $331, according to his order, by which means every thing will be brought to rights. I shall write to him on this subject, and shall be glad to learn that this arrangement is made, and is satisfactory. "I tender you my best wishes. "TH. JEFFERSON.' ""DIRECTIONS FOR MR. BACON. "If the weather is not open and soft when Davy arrives, put the box of thorns into the cellar, where they may be entirely free from the influence of cold, until the weather becomes soft, when they must be planted in the places of those dead |