Dear Mr. Jefferson

Book excerpt: "No occupation is so delightful to me as the culure of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden." --Thomas Jefferson An 18th-century statesman, a thoroughly modern gardener, a slightly one-sided correspondence on seeds, soil and the art of living... For years, novelist Laura Simon had been building a garden around her Nantucket home, nurturing onions from wispy, pungent seedlings, spreading manure in early spring, harvesting in fall. And with the passage of time, she longed for a correspondent with whom to exchange reflections on seeds and soil, to share her stories and her passion for gardening. Unable to find such a person, Ms. Simon turned to the works of the eighteenth-century statesman and avid horticulturist Thomas Jefferson. Thus began an only slightly one-sided correspondence between Ms. Simon and the Monticello gardener himself. Interweaving her own observations about past and present with selected passages from Jefferson's writings, Simon has crafted a true epistolary adventure, filled with history and humor, a literate guide to gardening--and living a well-cultivated life.