Future President Thomas Jefferson cultivates hundreds of varieties of vegetables, fruits, and flowers at his Virginia estate Monticello. Jefferson writes to artist Charles Wilson Peale, “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. I am still devoted to the garden. But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

Berrall, Julia S. The Garden: An Illustrated History, (New York: Viking Press, 1966,) 310.