216 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
a little to the sweetening their blood and correcting their juices ; for 
the inhabitants of mountainous districts to this day are still liable 
to the itch and other cutaneous disorders, from a wretchedness and 
poverty of diet. 
As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged person of 
observation may perceive, within his own memory, both in town 
and country, how vastly the consumption of vegetables is increased. 
Green-stalls in cities now support multitudes in a comfortable state, 
while gardeners get fortunes. Every decent labourer also has his 
garden, which is half his support, as well as his delight; and 
common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and greens, for 
their hinds to eat with their bacon ; and those few that do not are 
despised for their sordid parsimony, and looked upon as regardless 
of the welfare of their dependents. Potatoes have prevailed in 
this little district by means of premiums within these twenty years 
only ; and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who would 
scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign. 
Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage, because 
they call the month of February “sprout cale ;’’ but long after 
their days the cultivation of gardens was little attended to.* The 
religious, being men of leisure, and keeping up a constant corre- 
spondence with Italy, were the first people among us that had 
gardens and fruit-trees in any perfection within the wall of their 
abbeys} and priories. The barons neglected every pursuit that 
did not lead to war or tend to the pleasure of the chase. 
It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horticulture them- 
selves that the knowledge of gardening made such hasty advances. 
Lord Cobham, Lord Ila, and Mr. Waller, of Beaconsfield, were 
some of the first people of rank that promoted the elegant science 
of ornamenting without despising the superintendence of the 
kitchen quarters and fruit walls. 
A remark made by the excellent Mr. Ray, in his “Tour of 
Europe,” at once surprises us, and corroborates what has been ad- 
vanced above ; for we find him observing so late as his days, that 
‘‘ The Italians use several herbs for sallets, which are not yet, or 
* As our Saxon ancestors called the month of February ‘‘sprout-cale,’’ so the names of 
many other months were equally significant : viz., March, Stormy Month; May, Trimilki, 
the cows being milked three times a-day; June, Dig-and-Weed Month; September, 
Barley Month,” &c.—MirForp. 
+ “In monasteries the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, however dimly. In them 
men of business were formed for the state: the art of writing was cultivated by the monks ; 
they were the only proficients in mechanics, gardening, and architecture.’’—DALRYMPLE $ 
Annals of Scotland. 
