The Garden under Snow 



beginning to end, and I know of no book so 

 useful in its particular way. For the history of 

 the plants and the old plant names given by the 

 older writers it is most valuable, and the cultural 

 directions are excellent. Though the last edition 

 in four folio volumes was published nearly a 

 hundred years ago, I know of no book that has 

 supplanted it as a botanical and gardening 

 dictionary, and, as it can be bought for a few 

 shillings, I can safely recommend it to all. 



Different gardeners will, of course, be attracted 

 by different books. Some will only be satisfied 

 with purely scientific botany ; others will be 

 attracted by books treating of geographical and 

 geological botany ; others will only care for 

 books which tell how to grow and improve 

 flowers ; and each and all will find abundance 

 of books to their different tastes. My own taste 

 has always been for the old writers, especially 

 those of the seventeenth and early part of the 

 eighteenth centuries ; and without denying the 

 excellent work done by many foreign writers of 

 that date, I have always taken a special delight 

 in our own English writers. There were many 

 English writers on botany before Gerard ; but his 

 work is really the first English work that popu- 

 larised botany. It is not truly an English work, 

 for it is a translation from Dodoens, and the 

 plates are taken from Tabernaemontanus. Still 

 there is a great deal of original matter, and the 

 English is Gerard's own, and is very quaint and 



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