In an 1806 sketch of Monticello mountain, Thomas Jefferson designated 18 acres on the northwestern side as the “Grove.” He intended the Grove to be an ornamental forest with the undergrowth removed, the trees pruned and thinned, and the woodland “broken by clumps of thicket, as the open grounds of the English are broken by clumps of trees.” Visitors to Monticello in Jefferson’s time were often given The Grove Finds Its Groove
“within a few days I shall bury myself in the groves of Monticello, & become a mere spectator of the passing events.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1809
tours of the grounds, which included a rambling survey of the 160 species described as Jefferson’s “pet trees.” The Grove was first restored in the 1970s, but many of the trees have lived out their life spans, succumbed to disease or suffered heavy storm damage. Through research and the replanting of 52 new trees, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has restored the Upper Grove to resemble Jefferson’s vision more closely. The trees replenish those that have been lost and replace locally extinct Jefferson-documented trees such as the chestnut and American elm with other native species. The yearlong project was made possible with funds from the Rivanna Garden Club of Charlottesville, Virginia.
Jefferson Said It A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE By J. Jefferson Looney, the Daniel P. Jordan Editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello
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we are sometimes disposed to think with regret that we have been born an age too soon for the luminous advance of sciences, of which we see the dawn. but justice suggests that our age has had it’s turn, and it’s honors too, and that the enjoyments of advancing science which we have had more than those who have gone before us, should not be envied to those who are to come after us ” — Thomas Jefferson to Claudius Crozet, November 23, 1821 Thomas Jefferson emphatically disagreed when John Adams suggested in 1798 that he saw little hope of transmitting to posterity any improvement on existing “principles, institutions, or systems of education.” Jefferson’s own more optimistic view was that the human mind “is perfectible to a degree of which we cannot as yet form any conception,” and thus that there would always be more to learn and improve. Benjamin Franklin once wished that he had been born centuries later, to satisfy his curiosity but also to enjoy the comforts of new inventions. In the quote above, Jefferson counseled against envying those who would benefit from such future blessings, inasmuch as each generation should be allowed the pleasure of making its own discoveries.
Fascinated by science and technology, Jefferson filled his home with scientific instruments like this orrery, an operating model of the solar system.
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