b"C H A P T E R S E V E Nhave welcomed FCWs involvement, as Cape Fishs Bob Denn echoes: I cant say enough about George Olmsteds efforts, his initiative, in putting out this chart. Yes, navigational charts have come a long way since 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift derided the maps of his day:So, geographers, in Afric maps,With savage picturesf ill their gaps,And o er uninhabitable downs Place elephantsf o- r want of towns.22.Cultivating a Garden for Cape CodIt may be hard to visualize, but Chatham homes have not always had putting-green lawns and plantings fit for Longwood Gardens. Joshua Nickerson 2nd remembered growing up in the early 1900s with the back of his home more barnyard than anything. Not everyone had pigs, he wrote in 1987, but we always had two'Napoleon and 'CaesarThey met their fate every fall.When the town assessor counted heads in 1909 on livestock and fowl, he found 187 horses, 117 cows, 1,795 chickens and roosters, and eight common cattle.3 Not much chance that weedless, mole-free lawns and brightly flowered borders could survive that competition.Chatham native Joe Nickerson pictures the landscape in the late Twenties and early Thirties. As teenagers, his cousin Willard Nickerson Jr. and he worked at the family-owned Old Harbor Inn, above Scatteree Road. A shuffleboard court had been laid out, and when the grass got to be six inches high, Willard and he would mow it down. No esthetics involved, just practicality. No one had watering systems. If it rained, fine! recalls Joe Nickerson. If it didnt, there was nothing theyd do about it.Then, change started arriving in bulk. When Eldredge Public Library inherited Kate Gould Park in 1932, says Nickerson, they did a lot of work there, planting trees and making the lawn. Meanwhile, a widening stream of suburbanites flowed down for the summer, importing their tastes (and funds). Among early ones was Roy E. Tomlinson of Montclair, New Jersey.Originally a Chicagoan, Tomlinson spent a lifetime in the National Biscuit Company, going back to 1902. He was named president in 1917 and chairman in 1929, finally retiring in 1965. Living in a New Jersey suburb, he was used to seeing fine yards enhancing massive homes. He took that standard with him in 1923 when he bought the Rufus W Page estate on a slope above Old Harbor Road. As Joe Nickersonreconstructs that period, Tomlinson eventually103"