Pn Modern Improvements of Horticulture. 265 



laid the foundation of British gardening. The rules and ex- 

 amples left by them, were probably continued, with occasional 

 accessions to the stock both of practice and production, through- 

 out the Heptarchy, the domination of the Saxons, Danes, and 

 Normans : but these troublous times were not favourable to 

 the prosecution of the arts of peace ; and it is not likely much 

 advancement in the art took place until the Norman power 

 was fully established ; and even then their castellated mansions 

 precluded any extensive adaptation of garden, from the neces- 

 sity of forming the glacis, for the greater security of the baro- 

 nial hall : and though it is probable that, at this time, not a 

 dwelling, from the regal palace to the cottage, but had a gar- 

 den of some size or other, yet the best practice was confined to 

 the monasteries, and other religious corporations of those days, 

 all over Christendom. Their education and leisure, their foreign 

 intercourse, their interest in the tithes, and their love of superior 

 vegetables and condiments, on the many days they were restricted 

 from indulging in the consumption of animal food, all contributed 

 to incline the monks to prosecute gardening on the most approved 

 plans. Thus, Italy, Spain, and Germany became famous for 

 their superior culinary vegetables, as France was for improved 

 fruits ; indeed, when war depopulated or devastated a country, 

 and when the gardens of the ch-^teau became a sacrifice to 

 offensive or defensive operations, and when the potageries of 

 the hamlets were trodden under foot and destroyed by a licen- 

 tious soldiery, the gardens of the religious houses were often 

 spared, and, consequently, many roots and fruits found there 

 an asylum, which was denied them in less privileged places. 



In looking over the lists of plants cultivated in those days, 

 we fmd the names of a great majority of the common sorts 

 now in use, as well culinary, as for the table or the press, with 

 a great addition of physical plants, it being then a prevalent 

 supposition that remedies for all the ailments of the human 

 frame were existent in the vegetable kingdom, if they could be 

 detected ; the cultivation and gathering of simples, therefore, 

 was a business which employed many heads and many hands : 

 even the Corinthian pillars of the noble profession of physic 

 were not entirely free from that malaria, which was generated 

 in the fumes of the herbalist's shop 1 



