194 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



ciated, and special attention directed thereto. The temperament and 

 peculiar social condition and usages of the people were exceedingly 

 favorable for the production of expert horticulturists. The rich and 

 influential lords of the manors possessed the means of employing 

 skillful workmen, and the more intelligent of the laboring classes 

 esteemed it a high honor to fill posts of special duty upon the great 

 estates. England's sailors visited all quarters of the globe, and Eng- 

 lish colonists established themselves in all climates, under all suns 

 and skies. The rich contributions from the wide vegetable world 

 were early accessible to English people as to none other. Why 

 should we not look for gardeners as specialists in the earlier years of 

 horticultural development in Great Britain? 



But we shall look in vain tor anything in English domestic his- 

 tory beyond two hundred years ago for such horticutural operations 

 and requirements as would demand the services of a skilled gardener, 

 such as we now know. The third chapter of the first volume of Ma- 

 caulay's History of England gives a succinct and exceedingly sug- 

 gestive picture of rural affairs at the time of the accession of James 

 II. There were no regular mails, and newspapers were unknown. 

 Roads were almost impassable, and traffic of all kinds tedious and 

 expensive. The people lived upon what they could provide themselves, 

 without interchange from abroad. As it was not easy to keep cattle 

 over winter they were slaughtered in great numbers at the begin- 

 ning of cold weather, and the flesh preserved with salt, produced by 

 rude processes from brine pits in the neighborhood. The average 

 wages of agricultural workmen were about four shillings per week 

 and board, or eight shillings without board, while the price of wheat 

 was something like the present figure. Few could eat wheaten 

 bread. Rye, barley, oats and onoins formed the chief food of the 

 great majority of the people. All drank beer, and I think we can 

 readily forgive them. Cultivated fruits were exceedingly limited in 

 quantity and certainly not high in quality. Dress was very plain; 

 leather suits being especially esteemed for durability. No one wore 

 underclothing, to be weekly turned over to the washwomen. Houses 

 quite commonly accommodated the cows and the horses, as well as 

 human beings. Money was seldom used in the business transactions 

 of the rural people. 



All these are indications of the habits of life of the English people 

 in 1685, and all help us answer for ourselves what must have been 

 the state of horticultural science and art. Of the former we may 

 easily say there was none. Of the latter surely there was little prac- 

 ticed, in the " Household Book" of the powerful Earls of North- 

 umberland, it is recorded that out of a household of one hundred 

 and sixty persons in 1512, there was one man called the gardener, 

 who is said to have attended "hourly in the garden for setting of 

 erbes and clipping of knottis, and sweeping the said garden clene." 

 This was within the reign of the epoch-making Henry VIH, and 



