When one thinks of the founding of our nation, you do not immediately think of gardening. Andrea Wulf has vividly recounted the founding of our nation through the "Founding Fathers" love of agriculture, botany and planting. The book tells of a time when the leaders of this new nation knew that if the United States were to ever succeed, we needed to be independent of reliance on other nations for our basic needs such as food and manufactured goods. George Washington was so devoted to his love of Mount Vernon (his home plantation) that on the eve of the Revolution, when British warships gathered off Staten Island, he wrote to his estate manager about planting the gardens. (Some of those very trees are still standing today) Wulf writes of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson's very close friendship and how they traveled in English countryside examining gardens. James Madison and Jefferson's New England countryside tour, and John Adams' obsession with manure. Most of all the call to a republican state (not political party) where an agrarian society it to be held in the highest esteem; preservation of natural resources prevailed, and thinking of the collective good above personal gain.
I found this books to be absolutely inspiring and a must read for a gardener and/or history buff.
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