260 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



abound in Salads, early Cucumbers, Colliflowers, Melons, Winter 

 Asparagus, and almost every Herb fitting the Table ; and I 

 think there is no where so good a school for a Kitchen gardener 

 as this Place ; tho' Battersea affords the largest natural 

 Asparagus and the earliest Cabbages. Again, the Gardens 

 about Hammersmith are as famous for Strawberries, Rasberries, 

 Currants, Gooseberries, and such like ; and if early Fruit is 

 our Desire Mr. Millet's, at North End, near the same Place, 

 affords us Cherries, Apricocks, and Curiosities of those kinds, 

 some months before the Natural Season." Another good 

 nurseryman near London was Nicholas Parker at Chiswick. 

 He is highly recommended by Lawrence as known to all men 

 for his " honesty, skill and integrity/' which seems more than 

 could be said of all in the same trade. They were inclined to 

 cheat and send out inferior varieties of fruit, in the place of those 

 ordered by the purchaser, " a dry insipid Nectorine " instead of 

 " an old Newington Peach, or instead of a rich French Pear 

 a gritty choak-pear or Warden."* 



Kalm, the great Swedish horticulturalist, after whom the 

 genus Kalmia was named, who passed through England on his 

 way to America, in 1748, was struck by the market-gardens and 

 early vegetables which he saw. He describes some gardens 

 where the beds were raised, sloping a little towards the sun, 

 and " most of them were at this time (February) covered with 

 glass frames, which could be taken off at will. . . . Russian 

 matting over these, and straw over that four inches thick. 

 These contained cauliflowers some four inches high. In the 

 rest of the field were ' bell-glasses,' under which also cauliflower- 

 plants were set 3 or 4 under each bell-glass. Besides the 

 afore-named beds, there were here long asparagus-beds. Their 

 height above the ground was two feet ; on the top they were 

 similarly covered with glass, matting, and straw, which had 

 just been all taken off at midday. The Asparagus under them 

 was one inch high and considerably thick." f Radishes were 

 also grown in the same garden, and the beds covered ,with 



* The Clergyman 1 s Recreation. John Lawrence, Rector of Yelvertoft, 

 Northamptonshire. 



f Kalm's Visit to England. Translated by Joseph Lucas, 1892. 



