FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 



53 



Clay had to be laid on the stock, " to kepe the rayne owte," and 

 moss bound over the clay with " a wyth of haseltree rynde." 

 Most of the early writers on gardening and husbandry devote a 

 large share of their treatises to grafting, and various experiments 

 to change the" colour or flavour of the fruits were made. Robert 

 Salle is quoted as an authority on grafting in the fifteenth 

 century.* He says : " Yf thou wilt make thyn apples reede, 

 take the graffe of an appel tree and gniffe hit on a stok of elme 

 or aldyr and hit shall ber' reede apples." " Make an hole w* a 

 wymbylP in a tree and what colour thu wilt distempre hit with 

 water and put hit in at the hole and the fruit shal be of the same 

 colour.'' 1 1 



It was considered the most essential part of a husbandman's 



GRAFTING. FROM THE ARTE OF PLANTING AND GRAFTING, 

 BY LEONARD MASCALL. EDITION I5Q2. 



education, that he should be well-skilled in grafting, as the 

 following lines, though of later date, so well describe : " It is 

 necessarye, profytable, and also a pleasure, to a housbande, to 

 have peares, wardens, and apples of dyuerse sortes. And also 

 cheryes, filberdes, bulleys, dampsons, plummes, walnuttes, and 

 suche other. And therefore it is convenyent to lerne howe thou 

 shalte graffe." t 



Gardens of this date were usually square enclosures, bounded 

 either by walls of stone, brick, or daub, or by thick hedges. 



* Sloane MS., 122. 



f The same recipes are also given in the Porkington Treatise printed for 

 the Warton Club, 1855, ed. by Halliwell. 



J Book of Husbandry. By Fitz Herbert, 1544. Ed. Skeat, 1882. 



