Page:The Bloom of Monticello (1926).pdf/26

 the raising and husking of rice for the benefit of the farmers of South Carolina and Georgia, and came out with a supply of seed, some of which he said he had induced Poggio, a muleteer who passed every week between Vercelli and Genoa, to smuggle out in a sack for him, "it being death," he explained, "to export it in that form." He introduced tulips from Holland into America, and is held responsible today by Albemarle farmers for the Scotch broom, or gorse, which has spread itself over their red-clay hills.

The meanest flower that grew was not unworthy of his notice. Describing a visit to New York, he noted the wild honeysuckle growing on the banks of Lake George, an aspen with a yellow leaf, and a short willow with a downy catkin, and described an azalea that presented itself to him as the richest shrub he had seen, "different from the nudiflora, with very large clusters of flowers more thickly set on the branches, of a deeper red, and a high pink fragrance." Back of the gardener must be recognized the botanist, at work, with an eye for new books, a mind for new facts, and a ready hand for experimentation. His "Notes on Virginia" contain the first real study of the flora of the state, and the wide results obtained by botanists from plants and seed brought back by the Lewis and Clark expedition, due in a large degree to Thomas Jefferson, whose spirit animated the whole undertaking, are recognized as his major contribution to the science.

"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth," he once said, "and no culture to that of the garden." "Along with painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry, some include oratory as one of the fine