10 INTRODUCTION. 



homestead. The flowers and fruits of ihe earth 

 bud, bloom, and decay in their season, but Nature 

 again performs her deputed mission, and spring 

 succeeds the dreary winter with renewed beauty 

 and two-fold increase. Health accompanies sim- 

 ple and natural pleasures. The culture of the 

 ground affords a vast and interminable field of 

 observation, in which the mind ranges with sin- 

 gular pleasure, though the body travels not. It 

 surrounds home with an unceasing interest ; do- 

 mestic scenes become endeared to the eye and 

 mind ; worldly cares recede ; and we may truly 

 say 



"For us kind Nature wakes her genial power, 

 Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower ! 

 Annual for us, the grape, the rose, renew 

 The juice nectarious, and the balmy dew : 

 For us, the mine a thousand treasures brings ; 

 For us, health gushes from a thousand springs." 



Etk. ep. i. ver. 129. 



The taste for gardening in England, began to 

 display itself in the reign of Edward III., in whose 

 time the first work on the subject was composed by 

 Walter de Henly. Flour-gardening followed 

 slowly in its train. The learned Liriacre, who 

 died in 1524, introduced the damask rose from 

 Italy into England. King James I. of Scotland, 

 when a prisoner at Windsor Castle, thus describes 

 its " most faire" garden : 



"Now was there maide fast by the fowris wall. 

 A garden faire, and in the corneris set 



An herbere green, with wandis long and small 

 Railit about and so with treeis set 

 Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet, 

 That lyfe was now walking there forbye, 

 That might within scarce any wight espie , 



