HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



His pleasant garden God ordain'd ; 



A happy rural seat of various view ; 



Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balnij 



Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, 



Hung amiable, and of delicious taste : 



Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose. 



The birds their choir apply ; airs, vernal airs, 



Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune 



The trembling leaves, while universal Pan 



Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, 



Led on the eternal Spring. 



The science and art of Horticulture, even in the oldest and most 

 enlightened nations of Europe, had not claimed that earnest attention to 

 which they were eminently entitled, before the middle of the last century ; 

 and it was not until the commencement of the present, that a zealous spirit 

 of inquiry Avas excited, and efficient measures adopted for accelerating 

 their development, by accurate experiments, in a manner commensurate 

 with that which had been realized in all the other great branches of 

 industry. 



From the reign of Edward III. to that of Henry VHI. but little progress 

 had been made in the culture of fruits, flowers and culinary vegetables, 

 as the portions of land which could be safely appropriated to those 

 purposes v/ere small compartments within the area enclosed by the exterior 

 walls of the feudal castles, which Avere kept in a constant slate of defence, 

 by moats, drawbridges and armed men. Leland states, that " the gardens 

 within the moat, and the orchards without, Avere exceeding fair. The 

 latter were mounts Avrithen about with degrees, like turnings in a cokel- 

 shell, to come to the top without payn ;" thus indicating how limited were 

 the spaces appropriated to those purposes. 



Henry VH. states, that in his lime " apples cost from one to two shillings 

 each — red ones fetching the highest price ;" and when Catharine, the first 

 Queen of Henry VHL, desired a sallad, it was brought from Flanders. 

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