EARLY GARDEN LITERATURE. 71 



the fifteenth century known as the Porkington Treatise, has 

 a few pages devoted to grafting and planting of trees which 

 contain almost the same matter as those already cited, with a 

 few additions. The author gives all the usual recipes for making 

 fruit grow without stones, and so on, but he tells also how to 

 graft a vine and a red rose on a cherry, and how to make the 

 fruit turn blue by boring " an hole in the tre m^e the rote " 

 and putting in " good asure of Almayne ; " also, he says rose 

 hips, or " pepynes," as he calls them, should be sown in 

 February or March, "and dew heme welle with water" "iff 

 thou wolt have many rosys in thy herbere." * 



The earliest known really original work on gardening, 

 written in English, is a treatise in verse by " Mayster Ion 

 Gardener/' of which a unique manuscript exists in the Library 

 of Trinity College, Cambridge. t It is contained in a small 

 volume of miscellaneous manuscript matter, which was given to 

 the College by Roger Gale, in 1738. This copy was apparently 

 written about 1440, but the poem is probably of earlier date. 

 From the evidence of the language, it appears that the author 

 was Kentish, and from the mistakes of the copyist, it would 

 seem that he was unfamiliar with some of the words which 

 were becoming obsolete at the time he wrote. The exist- 

 ing title, " The Feate of Gardening," is evidently added 

 by a later hand. Nothing definite is known of the author 

 of this poem. He may have been a professional gardener, 

 or he may merely have assumed the name, as symbolic of 

 the craft, just as Langland wrote under the name of Piers 

 Ploughman. We certainly find John a very common Christian 

 name among the gardeners of the period. This treatise is a 

 great step in advance of earlier writers. It is so thoroughly 

 practical, that the directions it contains might be followed with 

 successful results at the present day. It is unencumbered 

 by superstitions, then so prevalent, and quite free from fanciful 

 recipes. The poem contains 196 lines, consisting of a prologue 



* Porkington MS., the property of W. Ormsby Gore, published by the 

 Warton Club in 1855, under the title of Early English Miscellanies, ed. by 

 G. O. Halliwell, F.R.S., &c. 



f Printed in the Archceologia, Vol. LIV., with a glossary by myself. 



