50 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



I will arrange the account of my books in chronological 

 order, according to the date of their publication : 



1614. 'Hortus Floridus, by Eembertus Dodonaeus 

 and Carolus Clusius.' This is the earliest gardening 

 book I possess. It was printed in Amsterdam, and is a 

 real representation of cultivated garden flowers, not a 

 Herbal in any sense. It has a frontispiece with the 

 portraits of the two authors, which was common enough 

 in the old Dutch books of the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries. Jupiter and Diana are represented on either 

 side of the page, with wreaths of flowers hung along the 

 top, and plants growing in pots placed at the bottom. 

 The title of the book is in the centre. The plates 

 are not coloured, but the flowers are very well drawn. 

 There are two charming pictures of Dutch gardens sur- 

 rounded by an arched wall with creepers, straight paths, 

 and beds edged with box. In one a woman is gathering 

 Tulips, dressed in the quaint fashion of the period, and a 

 man is leaning over a wooden or stone railing looking at 

 her. The number and variety of exotic flowers figured 

 in the book is surprising. Besides all the ordinary 

 spring bulbs which are now grown, there are Sun- 

 flowers, called Indian Golden Suns (Helianthuses, of 

 course, all came from America), Cannas, Marvels of Peru 

 (called Merveille d'Inde a diver ses couleurs), Nicotiana, 

 etc. Insects are introduced on several of the plates, and 

 in one or two instances mice are feeding on the bulbs 

 which lie on the ground. The African Agapanthus is 

 called Narcissus marinus exoticus. Both the Helle- 

 bores are here, and all the flowers are so well drawn as 

 to be perfectly recognisable. The book is an oblong 

 shape, bound in unstiffened white parchment. It is well 

 preserved, though some Philistine lady of the last century 

 has, with patient industry, pricked some of the flowers 

 and insects all round for the purpose of taking the out- 



