210 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



"besides your out strong fence, you must have a fayre and swift 

 greyhound; a stone-bowe, gunne, and if neede require, an apple 

 with an hooke for a Deere, and a Hare-pipe for a hare," and 

 against blackbirds, bullfinches, and other small birds, " the 

 best remedy here is a stone-bow, a peece." No survey of the 

 garden would be complete, without mention of the bees, whose 

 hives were to be found in them all, and the management of which 

 was considered a necessary part of a gardener's duties, and 

 writers on gardening subjects generally devoted a chapter to 

 bees* 



One memorable event in the time of Charles I. was the 

 formation of the first Botanical Garden in England, at 

 Oxford, in 1632. This was just a hundred years after the 

 establishment of the earliest in Europe, that at Padua. 

 Henry, Earl of Danby, founded and endowed it ; he gave 

 five acres of land, also built greenhouses, and a house for 

 the gardener. The fine gateways, bearing a date and inscription 

 in praise of the Founder, were designed by Inigo Jones. 

 Jacob Bobart, a German, from Brunswick, first had charge 

 of it, and he was succeeded by his son, also Jacob. 



The marshes for bog plants, to be seen at Kew and 

 elsewhere at the present day, which are the admiration 

 of lovers of a "wild garden," are no new thing. Bobart 

 had one at Oxford, which is thus described by Robert 

 Sharrock.f " The Artificial Bog is made by digging a hole 

 in any stiff clay, and filling it with earth taken from a bog 

 , . of this sort, in our garden here in Oxford, we have 

 one artificially made by Bobart, for the preservation of Boggy 

 plants, where being sometimes watered, they thrive for a 

 year or two as well as in their natural places." A catalogue 

 of the garden, which contained some 1600 species and varieties, 

 was published by Bobart in 1648. Of these nearly six hundred 

 were native plants. The catalogue is a tiny book, and no 

 space is given to describe the flowers. It is merely a list 

 of names, the first part Latin-English, the second English- 

 Latin. The list contains among trees "Abies mas," "male 



* Thomas Hill, The right ordering of Bees. 



\ An Improvement to the Art of Gardening. 3rd Edition, 1694. 



