NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 221 



The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among all 

 ranks of people in the south, instead of that miserable sort which 

 used in old days to be made of barley or beans, may contribute 

 not 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 pre- 

 vailed 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 cor- 

 respondence 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 

 themselves that the knowledge of gardening made such hasty 

 advances. Lord Cobham, Lord Ila, and Mr. Waller, of Beacons- 

 field, were some of the first people of rank that promoted the 



* " 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'S Annals of Scotland. 



