8 A BOOK OF ENGLISH GARDENS 



rare, but they became a luxury under Augustus, 

 and though never grown in profusion, were 

 cultivated for use at feasts and for garlands. 

 Heliogabalus carried this fashion to the length 

 of having his apartments strewn ankle-deep with 

 flowers. 



England owes, like many greater gifts, her first 

 Gardens to these wonderful Romans so practical, 

 yet such artists in the treatment of all they touched ; 

 possessing great knowledge, which included even 

 little tricks in Gardening often claimed as quite 

 modern. 



Before the Roman Conquest, Gardens were 

 unknown in England. " The people of Britain," 

 writes Strabo, "are generally ignorant of the art 

 of cultivating Gardens." The English climate 

 was praised by Tacitus, who declared it to be 

 suitable for all vegetables except the Vine and the 

 Olive. But the Emperor Probus urged the plant- 

 ing of the former, and the fact of the Vine being 

 grown is mentioned by Bede in the beginning of 

 the eighth century. The fall of the Roman Empire 

 caused the loss of all the knowledge gained in the 

 art of Gardening, in England as well as elsewhere 

 in Europe ; and horticulture and all pertaining to 

 it fell into the monks' hands, for such a quiet, 

 peaceful pleasure had no place in the lives of 

 the people during those troublous times. Fortu- 

 nately, the monks, in their retired and sheltered 



