200 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



So much is done to encourage the improvement of flowers 

 nowadays, by Shows, Competitions and Prizes, that it is 

 difficult to realize that the efforts made in that direction long 

 ago were spontaneous. The earliest record I have noticed of 

 encouragement of the growth of flowers (except of course 

 gratuities for presents of flowers, at a much earlier date) is 

 mentioned by Pulteney,"* " Mr. Ray informs us that the people 

 of Norwich had long excelled in the culture and production of 

 fine flowers, and that in those days (c. 1660) the florists held 

 their annual feasts, and crowned the best flower with a premium 

 as a present." 



The introduction of foreign tender plants led to the 

 gradual growth of conservatories and hothouses. In a previous 

 chapter I noticed some hints Sir Hugh Platt gave for the 

 protection of delicate plants during the winter. In the second 

 part of his work, first printed in 1660, he not only thinks of 

 protection, but has also a feeble idea of forcing, an art which 

 did not develop until many years later. He writes, "Quaere, 

 If pease beans pompeons musk mellons, and other pulse 

 seeds, put in small pots . . . and placed in a gentle stove or 

 some convenient place aptly warmed by a fire and then sown 

 in March or April would they come up sooner ? " Again he 

 says, "why not utilize a kitchen fire planting them (i.e. apricots 

 or vines) near a warm wall, or brewers, diers, soap boilers or 

 refiners of sugar, who have continual fire, may easily convey 

 the heat of steam of their fires (which are now utterly lost) 

 into some private room adjoining wherein to bestow their fruit 

 trees." 



Attention was now turned to growing oranges, and the 

 houses built for the shelter of these trees are the earliest kind 

 of conservatory. Very far removed from the modern glass 

 structure, they were like large rooms with big windows and a 

 stove or open fire to warm it in the coldest time, or " in default 

 of stoves or raised hearths you must attemper the air with pans 

 of Charcole." f The oranges were planted in cases, and were 



* Sketches of Botany, 1790. - 



t Rea, Flora, Ceres and Pomona, 1665, also Sharrock. 



