In the fourth chapter of Andrea Wulf’s Founding Gardeners, she describes the tour of New England that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson took around the same time political parties began to appear in the young United States. This tour of the many gardens and farms that Jefferson and Madison inspected served as a pleasure and political trip that they hoped could fix many of the problems that had risen in the nation.
Many problems had risen since the writing of the Constitution, but the biggest was the emerging divide between many of the founding fathers and their visions for the nation. One group supported a vision of the future nation as a nation of farmers, while the other group saw the nation as one that should contain merchants and traders. These two different visions for the nation caused a fissure to appear that would eventually lead to the emergence of political parties within the United States. In Wulf’s chapter she focuses on the divide that appeared between Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson and Madison favored a nation of farmers, while Adams and Hamilton favored a nation of merchants and traders. In order to gain support for their vision of a nation of farmers, Jefferson and Madison turned to their love of gardens and plants.
To convince the people of the young nation that a nation built on farming was the best course, Jefferson conducted many experiments to find crops that would flourish in the states. One crop he experimented with was rice. His ultimate goal was to change the way rice was cultivated in the South. As a way to accomplish this goal Jefferson had smuggled rice (at the penalty of death) out of Italy, had grains sent to him from around the world, sent grains throughout the United States to be planted, and even kept some for himself to experiment with. As Wulf points out in the chapter, the rice more often than not failed with exception of Georgia, where the rice flourished. In Jefferson’s mind, if the nation was full of successful crops and orchards, then the people would never be tempted to turn to the vision of a nation full of merchants and traders. Another plant that was important to Jefferson was the sugar maple. Much like with the production of rice, Jefferson hoped to use sugar maples as a way to harvest food so that the nation would not have to participate in trade with England. Jefferson was able to convince many people that the sugar maple was important to the nation’s economy and its freedom from Britain. One writer found the sugar maple so important after meeting with Jefferson that he wrote, “Attention to our sugar orchards is essentially necessary to secure the independence of our country”.
As the division of the founding fathers continued to widen, Jefferson and Madison decided to take a tour of the Hudson River valley. This trip soon grew and the two founding fathers were traveling to places such as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The trip had originally been planned as a relaxing trip for the two men where they could get away from the troubles of the nation for a while and study and enjoy the beauty of the many gardens of the United States, but this changed shortly before they departed for the trip. The trip was still one of pleasure, but the men also began to mix politics into the trip. Jefferson and Madison traveled throughout New England studying the gardens and crops they came upon, trying to identify a way they could use the growing of crops and gardens as a way to support their vision of the nation. They also used this time to meet with many influential men whom they called upon to help support their push for a nation built on farming. The trip was successful in every aspect. Upon their return, both men reported that their health seemed better, they had encountered many different plants that they felt would be useful for the nation, and they also were able to gain support from many of the men they met with during the tour.
Overall, the influence of gardens, plants, and crops was an influential aspect of the argument that Jefferson and Madison had for their vision of the nation. They used their love of gardening to rally support and to conduct experiments that would be beneficial to the young United States. When one thinks of the founding of the United States of America, one does not usually associate gardening with the issue. As Wulf shows us in this chapter, gardening played a huge role in the shaping of America and the politics within the country today.
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