INTRODUCTION. 219 



industry principally to the relii^ious missionaries*. 

 The same course is now pursued, in a great measure, 

 by the missionaries in the South Seas, and in South- 

 ern Africa. 



The destruction of the monastic houses, and the 

 rise of the middle orders of society — a natural con- 

 sequence of commercial industry and enterprize — gave 

 an impulse to the general cultivation of fruit-trees, 

 instead of their growth being almost entirely limited 

 to the gardens of the ecclesiastics. The time of Eli- 

 zabeth was marked by a revival of the arts ; and 

 that princess herself set the example as a horti- 

 culturist. Towards the end of her reign, the cele- 

 brated Gerard published his well known ' Herball, 

 or Historic of Plants.' This eminent gardener, who 

 numbered among his patrons Lord Burleigh and 

 Sir Walter Raleigh, was one of those remarkable 

 men who unite a general scientific knowledge 

 with great practical industry — men, above all others, 

 calculated to advance the progress of any art. 

 Gerard kept a garden in Holborn ; and in 1596 he 

 published a catalogue of eleven hundred plants 

 growing there. Fitzherbert, and some others, had 

 written on the subject of plants before Gerard's 

 ' Herbair made its appearance. Those attempts 

 were, however, like most of the early treatises on 

 the arts and sciences, deri\ed rather from the 

 Roman writings on the subject than from an ex- 

 amination and knowledge of nature. James I., 

 the most pedantic, but the most peace-loving, and 

 far from the least intelligent of kings, planted a 

 fine garden at Theobalds, near Waltham Abbey, 

 which was, about thirty years afterwards, de- 

 scribed with much praise by John Albert de Man- 



* Political Essay on tlie Kingdom of New Spain, book iv., 

 chap. ix. 



u3 



