The verandas and porches may take care of themselves for the nonce, but the gardens need a passing word of vindication. In no place were there more notable gardens than in Philadelphia. Leaving Bartram’s garden out of the horticultural tale--the writer might cavil at it as a kind of nursery--there was “The Woodlands” near by, whose gardens, from the middle of the eighteenth century onward were as extensive and famous as any in the land, and exquisitely planned and maintained. There was the Grange, well known from early Colonial days, whose garden, even in its decay, is wonderful and beautiful.... There was Ury House whose box garden has been the pride of its owners and has delighted their guests for more than a hundred and fifty years and is today maintained in all its pristine trimness. There were the gardens at Grumblethorpe, Netherfield, Cedar Grove, the Highlands, Belmont, Fair Hill, to name only a few, while in the heart of the city the Bingham, Powel, Blackwell, Willing, Morris, and Cadwalader houses, along with many others, all had spacious gardens, well planted and tastefully arranged. A writer who could ignore all this material, could scarcely be expected to do justice to the houses. The examples now to be adduced will set the matter in a fairer light. It ought to be stated that most of the eighteenth century houses in Philadelphia and its neighbourhood were not designed by professional architects, but were planned by their owners and executed by skillful carpenters and builders. Some architectural knowledge was held to be a part of a gentleman’s education, and such men as Andrew Hamilton and John Kearsley, though amateurs, displayed no contemptible ability. The master carpenters of the city, in 1724, composed a guild large and prosperous enough to be patterned after “The Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London,” and, in 1736, became possessed of a choice collection of architectural works devised to his fellow members by James Portius whom William Penn had induced to come to his new city to “design and execute his Proprietary buildings.” In the Ridgway branch of the Philadelphia Library there is also a collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century books, treating of architecture, carpentry, joinery and various subjects connected with building, an examination of which will show that the artisans of the Georgian period were well supplied with guides devised to make the mysteries of their craft plain to the “meanest understanding.”