arts," he wrote the inquisitive Ellen when catechized by her on the point. "Others, again, add gardening as the seventh. It is nearly allied with landscape painting, and generally we find that landscape painters make the best gardeners."
When away from Monticello, the mind of Jefferson was constantly on growing things. Regardless of what was talked around Washington during the eight years of his presidency concerning foreign complications, outlets to be acquired, inroads to be avenged, treaties, trials and elections, cucumbers, cabbage, spinach, salsify, sprouts and squash, turnips, potatoes, artichoke, lettuce, cauliflower and eggplant, along with other varieties of succulents, claimed regularly in spring and fall the attention of the Chief Executive of the nation, who was keeping careful tables, throughout the time, of the appearance and departure from the market of such things.
"The advance of the season here makes me long to get home," wrote a wearied-out vice-president from Philadelphia as the Easter season approached in 1798. That day the famous X. Y. Z. dispatches were read in Congress, adding by their tone, to the fire of resentment already strong in many quarters, against the French, and resulting in a great shock to the mind of America. He continued, in the midst of wrangling senators, "The first shad we had here was March 16 and March 28 was the first day we could observe a greenish hue on the weeping willow from its young leaves. Not the smallest symptom of blossoming yet on any specimen of fruit tree."
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