34 



Systems Agriculture, being the Mystery of Husbandry 



Discovered; folio, 1681. 



Leonard Meagee's Portrait perhaps we may not be \ 

 desirous to discover, when he tells his readers, neither to 

 " sow, plant, nor graft, or meddle with any thing relating 

 to gardening, when the sun or moon is eclipsed, or on thai 

 clay, nor when the moon is afflicted by either of the unfortu- 

 nate planets, viz. Mars or Saturn. 5 '* His English Gardner, 

 in 4 to. with cuts, came out in 1683; the ninth edition came 

 out in 1G99, 4to.; it contains several clearly pointed plates 

 of knots, or parterres. 



Meager also published The New Art of Gardening, with 

 the Gardener's Almanack; 8vo. 1697; and 



The Mystery of Husbandry; 12mo. 1699. 



* Tusser seems somewhat of Meager's opinion : — 



Sow peason and beans, in the wane of the moon. 

 Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soon : 

 That they with the planet may rest and arise. 

 And flourish, with hearing most plentifull wise. 

 The celebrated Quintinye says, " I solemnly declare, that after a dili- 

 gent observation of the moon's changes for thirty years together, and an en- 

 quiry whether they had any influence in gardening, the affirmative of which 

 has been so long established among us, I perceive it was no weightier than 

 old wives' tales." 



The moon (says Mr. Mavor) having an influence on the tides and the 

 weather, she was formerly supposed to extend her power over all nature. 



There is a treatise, by Claude Gadroit, on the Influence* des Astres. 

 Surely this merits perusal, when the Nouv. Diet. Hist, thus speaks of him: 

 « J] ,'.toit ami du eclcbre Arnauhl el meritoit <le l'etre par lajustesse dc son 



esprit et la puretd de sea moeurs, par la bonte" de son caractere el par la 

 droiture de son cceur." 



The following wise experiment occurs in an ancient book on husbandry ; 

 but if the two parties there mentioned had lived with Leonard Meager, one 



