347 



GILBERT WHITE'S GAEDEN KALENDAE. 



[The anxiety with which Gilbert White watched every phase of his 

 horticultural operations, and the methodical manner in which he details 

 the daily work of his garden, is so minutely described in his " Garden 

 Kalendar,' 1 and is so characteristic of his habits, that I have thought it 

 would not be uninteresting to the reader to have a portion of these notes 

 in their primitive form. It is therefore printed verbatim from his MS. 

 One of the most amusing features of this record is the interest with 

 which he watches the growth of his Cantaloupe melons, then a novelty 

 to him, his alternate hopes and fears as they advanced, and the disgust 

 with which he contemplates their ultimate failure. A letter from Philip 

 Miller*, the author of the celebrated ' Gardener's Dictionary,' is not only 

 interesting in itself, but as showing the source whence he obtained 

 those precious seeds, and I have therefore thought it worth while to 

 prefix Miller's letter to the Kalendar. T. B.] 



SIR, 



I AM much obliged to you for your favourable opinion of my 

 performance f : if what I have published has been of public 

 utility I shall think myself happy. 



The Cantaleupe Melon seeds here inclosed, are from Ar- 

 menia, which is the country from whence the seeds were first 

 brought to Cantaleupe. I have had the seeds from thence 

 several years, and have found them much better than any of 

 those which were sent me from Cantaleupe. 



* [Philip Miller was born in 1G91, and succeeded his father as gar- 

 dener to the Chelsea Gardens in 1722. He was an excellent botanist, 

 and became a correspondent of Linnaeus. He was a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society, and a member of some of the scientific societies on the Con- 

 tinent. He died in 1771. T. B.] 



t [It appears by an entry in his account-book of 1749 that in that year 

 he purchased his copy of Miller's ' Gardener's Dictionary ' for eighteen 

 shillings. T. B.] 



