INTRODUCTION. 



Mascal! on plant raising, grow'ng and grafting. 

 Herbals were numerous, culminating in that of 

 John Gerard, published in 1596 ; but the curative 

 property of plants was often the principal part of the 

 description, and there were also treatises for the use 

 of the still-room, such as " The vertuose boke of 

 Distyllacyon," translated from the German by 

 Lawrence Andrews in 1527. There was, indeed, 

 very little original work produced on the subject by 

 Englishmen either in the sixteenth or seventeenth 

 century. Acknowledged translations or unac- 

 knowledged adaptations covered most of the field 

 botanic, medical, cultural and most especially the 

 section relating to garden design. On sixteenth 

 century French writers did seventeenth century 

 Englishmen almost entirely depend, for though 

 Richard Surfleet brought out his edition of Estienne's 

 " Maison Rustique " before the sixteenth century had 



A STONE URN AT NEW BOLD REVEL 



seen its last days, it only came into wide circulation 

 when Gervase Markham, among the various horti- 

 cultural works which came from his prolific pen, 

 re-edited it with additions in 1616. Markham, who 

 was born in 1568, came of a good Nottinghamshire 

 house, but being himself a younger son, and his 

 elder brother proving, as Thoroton tells us, "a fatal 

 unthrift and destroyer of this eminent family," he 

 depended on his own resources for a living. Serving 

 as a soldier in the Low Countries and visiting other 

 Continental lands, he knew Latin, Italian, Spanish, 

 French and Dutch. He was a practical agriculturist, 

 an intelligent reformer in matters connected with horse 

 breeding and racing, and almost the first importer of 

 Arab horses, of which he sold one to James I. for ^,500. 

 I Ic showed immense industry and range in translating 

 books and writing original tracts, not merely on 



R1BTO\ HALL: A GARDEN STATUE. 



STONEWORK AT RIHSTON HALL. 



