4 GARDEN MANAGEMENT. 



canals and ditclies made to accommodate the bridges thrown across 

 them ; caves, waterworks, banqueting-houses, and the never-failing lust- 

 Jiaus (summer-house) -^Ndth a profusion of trellis-work and green paint, 

 furnished, as Evelyn has it, " with whatever may render the place 

 agi'eeable, melancholy, and countiy-like," but abounding also in beauti- 

 ful grassy banks and green slopes, unknown in French gardens. 



7. In our own countiy, gardening, as an art, much less as a science, 

 is of comparatively modem date, but in no other country has it made 

 such progi'css. The universal aspiration, " Give me but a garden," 

 pervades young and old of our race. Our travellers ransack the Old 

 World and the New for new plants with which to beautify our gardens. 

 The footsore and weary and rather eccentric Australian traveller in 

 Leichhardt's " Overland Expedition " erected his tent, generally at a dis- 

 tance from the rest under a shady tree or in a green bower of shrubs, where 

 he made himself as comfortable as the place would allow by spreading 

 branches and grass under his couch, and covering his tent with them to 

 keep it shady and cool, even planting lilies in blossom before his tent, in 

 order that he might enjoy their sight during his short stay. Under 

 these circumstances, it is not surprising that our garden literature 

 should be extremely copious. For this taste, as well as the early 

 rudiments of gardening, we are probably indebted to the Romans ; for 

 Strabo, writing in the first century, tells us that the people of Britain 

 were ignorant of the art of cultivating gardens. The continual wars in 

 which Britain was engaged from the fifth century, when the Eomans 

 vacated the island, probably rooted out all traces of an art so civilizing 

 as gardening, although there are indications that vineyards planted 

 in the tliird century, under the Emperor Proteus, existed in the eighth 

 centmy, when they are mentioned by the Venerable Bede ; while William 

 of Malmsbury, writing in the twelfth century, commends the vineyards 

 of the county of Gloucester ; and Pliny tells us that cherries, which 

 Lucullus had introduced into Italy. about a century before, were grown 

 in Britain in the first century. Throughout the transition period which 

 succeeded the Eoman conquest, the warlike barons and discontented 

 people were probably too much occupied in looking to their personal 

 safety to think much of gardening. The opulent earls of Northumber- 

 land, whose household consisted, in 1512, of a hundred and sixty persons, 

 had but one gardener, who, according to the " Household Book," attended 

 *' hourly in the garden for setting of erbes, and clipping of knottis, and 

 sweeping the said garden clene." In Scotland — if we may trust to the 

 authority of the royal poet James I., — that poor country had already 

 established some claims to the reputation which has since carried so 



