fiS A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



and planting of trees which contain ahnost the same matter as 

 those already cited, with a few additions. The author gives 

 all the usual recipes for making fruit grow without stones, and 

 so on, but he tells also how to graft a vine and a red rose on a 

 cherr}', and how to make the fruit turn blue by boring " an hole 

 in the tre ni^e the rote " and putting in " good asure of 

 Almayne ; " also, he says rose hips, or " pepynes," as he calls 

 them, should be sown in February or March, " and dew heme 

 welle with water" "iff thou wolt have many rosys in thy 

 herbere." "^ 



The earliest known really original work on gardening, written 

 in English, is a treatise in verse by " Mayster Ion Gardener," of 

 which a unique manuscript exists in the Library of Trinity 

 College^ Cambridge. t It is contained in a small volume of 

 miscellaneous manuscript matter, which was given to the 

 College by Roger Gale, in 1738. This copy was apparently 

 written about 1440, but the poem is probably of earlier 

 date. From the evidence of the language, it appears that 

 the author was Kentish, and from the mistakes of the 

 copyist, it would seem that he was unfamiliar with some of the 

 words which were becoming obsolete at the time he wrote. 

 The existing title, "The Feate of Gardening," is evidently 

 added by a later hand. Nothing definite is known of the 

 author of this poem. He may have been a professional gardener, 

 or he may merely have assumed the name, as symbolic of 

 the craft, just as Langland wrote under the name of Piers 

 Ploughman. We certainly find John a very common Christian 

 name among the gardeners of the period. This treatise is a 

 great step in advance of earlier writers. It is so thoroughly 

 practical, that the directions it contains might be followed with 

 successful results at the present day. It is unencumbered 

 by superstitions, then so prevalent, and quite free from fanciful 

 receipts. The poem contains 196 lines, consisting of a prologue 



* Porkington MS., the property of W. Ormsby Gore, published by the 

 Warton Club in 1855, under the title of Early English Miscellanies, ed. by 

 G. O. Halliwell, f.r.s., &:c. 



f Printed in the ArcJicpologia, \o\. LI\'., with a glossary by myself. 



