Its Agriadhire. 345 



by statute laAV to exist in English soil/ and potatoes, wliicli 

 were very usual in foreign parts, were still confined within the 

 garden fence. They were however finding universal favour as 

 a relished edible when dished up with butter or milk.^ Jeru- 

 salem artichokes were used for fattening swine as well as for 

 human food. It must however be remembered that most of 

 these esculents had only recently been introduced into the 

 country. Hartlib had seen old men who could recall the first 

 attempts of a Surrey gardener with cabbage and cauliflower 

 plants, and turnip, carrot, parsnip, and early pea seed. People 

 who wanted such luxuries had to send for them all the way to 

 Holland and Flanders, and Hartlib himself is an eye witness to 

 the time, not more than twenty years before, when the Grraves- 

 end gourmets would be sending to Loudon for a dish of peas, 

 while in the year 1650, w^hen he was writing, he doubted if 

 gardening or hoeing was practised at all in the north and west 

 of England. Pot and salad herbs, as distinct from vegetables, 

 were more common, and most households were kept well 

 supplied with all the varieties still in use. In addition to 

 these, pennyroyal was in great request for blood puddings, 

 violet leaves for salads, and strawberry leaves for the pot.^ 

 As for those who were desirous of embellishing their estates 

 with arboriculture, or adding fresh varieties of fruits to their 

 orchards, they had to send sometimes as much as one hundred 

 miles to the nearest nursery,'^ and that was an undertaking 

 whose magnitude, we, in these days of railroads, are hardly in 

 a position to realize. 



The Jewel House of Art and Nature^ which somewhat 

 resembles the Enquire Within publications of the present 

 day, was written by Sir Hugh Piatt. It gives a large amount 

 of varied and trivial information. If one wanted to kill a rat 

 in a garner, construct a delicate stove to sweat in, dissolve 

 coral or pearl, manufacture salts of herbs, or distil rosewater, 

 he had only to refer to this work, but no one would turn over 



' Worledge, Systema Agric. 



^ Blithe, hnpi'over Improved. 



^ Nordeu, Surveyor''s Dialogue. 



* Hartlib, Design for Pleritie by a universall planting of trees. 



