Title:
Now, Some Gardening Advice, Brought to You by Thomas
Jefferson
Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
TOUR GUIDE: "My name is Janet and we're going to
have a garden tour today."
Visitors to the home of former President Thomas
Jefferson are often surprised to hear about his
interest in plants.
TOUR GUIDE: "We're going to talk about Jefferson as
a farmer, a scientist, an incredible landscape
designer and somebody who tried, amazingly in our
country, to get agriculture going."
Jefferson lived here at Monticello, a 2,000 hectare
property in central Virginia. He designed the house
and grounds, and planted fruit trees. Peter Hatch is
director of gardens and grounds at Monticello.
PETER HATCH: "This was a laboratory for Thomas
Jefferson, an Ellis Island, if you will, of new and
unusual plants that came literally from around the
world. Jefferson documented the planting of 330
varieties of vegetables and 170 varieties of fruit
in this garden."
Thomas Jefferson collected seeds from across the
world. He kept detailed records of their behavior
from 1766 to 1824.
PETER HATCH: "What Jefferson did was plant all these
things that came from the tropics of America, from
Africa and really expanded the palette. One wonders
if any man had grown so many different things in one
place before Jefferson assembled these things here
at Monticello?"
Hatch says his goal is to remain true to what
Jefferson started at Monticello, while adding to the
collection.
PETER HATCH: "One of my concerns has been trying to
find the old varieties of vegetables, the very same
species that Jefferson was growing and also to plant
in an interpretive way so people can see this really
important facet of Jefferson's world view, the
horticultural view."
Kris Somers and Doug Corley are visiting from
Colorado. They say Jefferson had an influence on
everything they saw.
CHRIS SOMERS: "I could see him out here because he
was so neat and meticulous, even if he was
experimenting."
DOUG CORLEY: "I think he was on to something well
before we are."
CHRIS SOMERS: "I think that we could still learn a
thing or two from what he's done here, sure."
DOUG CORLEY: " ... for the backyard gardener out
there today. It's quite a backyard. But he seems to
have it right."
Peter Hatch says Thomas Jefferson's advice to plant
lovers today would be to experiment. They can start,
he says, with seeds harvested from Monticello. I'm
Barbara Klein.
Hi. I
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
