November 19, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OP flORTICULTtJEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENES. 



•tin 



this is annexed two proper Treatises, the one entitnled The 

 mervailous goverment, propertie, and benefite of Bees, with 

 the rare secretes of the honnie and waxe. And the other. The 

 yerely conjectures meete for Husbandmen. To these is Hke- 

 wise added a Treatise on the Arte of Graffing and Planting of 

 Trees." The first edition of this was published in 15()8, and 

 how acceptable it was, and ministered to the growing taste for 

 gardening, is shown by other editions appearing in 1574, 1579, 

 1586, 1593, and KiOS, of which copies are in the library of the 

 British Museum. The edition of 158li is the last which ap- 

 peared in Hill's lifetime ; for we learn from Dethicke's dedi- 

 cation of "The Gardeners' Labyrinth," pubhshed in 1591, 

 that its author, bis friend, was " latelj' enterred." 



Although all that Hill pubhshed relative to gardening are 

 confessedly translations of the Greek and Latin writers, yet 



there are mingled with them notes of what ho saw and heard 

 of the gardening of the years in which he lived. Some of thesn 

 notes are here republished, but they will be as he pubhshed 

 them, without any system, for the gardens in his days com- 

 bined the kitchen, flower, and physic departments. 



Mazes were then thought clever inventions, and ho gives 

 three plans of them. " One of them, which liketh them 

 best, may be in that voyd place of the garden that may 

 best be spared for the onely purpose to sport them in at 

 times." 



Lavender " at this day growing in most gardens, is occupied 

 in baths and in the washing of hands, for the sweetnes of 

 smel, therefore of most men named the Lavender," implying 

 that it was derived from to lave or wash. 



The " Lillie of the Valley is a flour mervalous sweete — now 





Fig. 127. 



for the great commoditie and use known of the flonre of late 

 yea.res is brought and planted in gardens." 



Radishes were then, as now, a popular vegetable " well 

 knowen both unto the rich and poore, so that as well the hus- 

 bandmen as the cittizens doe at this day eate of the Radish, the 

 same before being weU scraped, cut into thin round sUces, and 

 dipped in water and salt." 



I have spoken of " The Gardeners' Labyrinth " as one of 

 Hill's pubhcations ; and it is so, for although on its title-page 

 the author is named " Dydymus Mountain," I pointed out 

 some years since in " Notes and Queries" that Didymus is a 

 synonym of Thomas, and Mountain an exaggeration of Hill. 

 However, all doubt upon this is removed by Hill's contempo- 

 rary Edmund Southerne, who states in his book on bees, pub- 

 lished in 1595, " Thomas Hill of London " was author of 

 " The Gardeners' Labyrinth." This is only an ampUhcation 

 of " The Arte of Gardening." 



It contains more woodcuts of the flower-knots, rude prece- 

 dents of our bedding-out; the construction of arbours, then 

 called " herbera ;" the arrangement of beds and modes of 

 watering. One woodcut showing their water-syringing so illus- 

 trates the whole that we have had it copied (see fiif. 127). 



It does not show that our garden implements were then 

 much improved either in workmanship or by new inventions. 



except that watering engine ; but all the Roman implements 

 were introduced into England during its four-hundred-years 

 occupation, and we have drawings of many in the Anglo-Saxon 

 MSS. Scarcely one of the chief implements we now use were 

 unknown to them. Baskets made of osiers ; bills, " crooked 

 hatchets ;" pruning hooks and pickaxes ; brooms made of 

 twigs ; flower pots of earthenware ; knives with crooked blades 

 for pruning ; rakes, the Roman had but four teeth, but the 

 Anglo-Saxon was hke that now used in haymaking; saws; 

 scythes, but the stale was straight and without handles ; spades 

 with demi-oval blades, and an iron above to put the foot on 

 when digging, and these were the same when the annexed cut 

 was drawn ; hoes, and one combined with a rake. Watering 

 pots seem to have been employed by the Greeks, but we do not 

 remember any notice of them by Roman writers. One of the 

 easiest mentions of them is by Shakspeare, who puts the 

 phrase into Lear's mouth, " To use his eyes like garden water- 

 pots for laying autumn's dust." Wheelbarrows also appear 

 to have been unused by them. 



Contrary to modern usage, then " the Beete was more often 

 eati n at poore men's tables ;" and Endive was blanched by 

 binding the leaves together " with a browne thread and cover- 

 ing them after with a pot of earth." 



I might quote many more instances of the gardening of three 



