SEVEXrEENTH CEXTCA')-. 193 



their annual feasts, and crowned the best tlower with a premium 

 as a present." 



The introduction of foreign tender plants led to the 

 gradual growth of conservatories and hothouses. In a previous 

 chapter I noticed some hints Sir Hugh Piatt gave for the 

 protection of delicate plants during the winter. In the second 

 part of his work, first printed in 1660, he not only thinks of 

 protection, but has also a feeble idea of forcing, an art which 

 did not develop until many years later. He w-rites, "Quaere, 

 If pease beans pompeons musk mellons, and other pulse 

 seeds, put in small pots . . . and placed in a gentle stove or 

 some convenient place aptly warmed by a fire and then sown 

 in March or April would they come up sooner ? " Again he 

 says, "why not utilize a kitchen fire planting them {i.e. apricots 

 or vines) near a warm w^all, or brewers, diers, soap boilers or 

 refiners of sugar, who have continual fire, may easily convey 

 the heat of steam of their fires (which are now utterly lost) 

 into some private room adjoining wherein to bestow their fruit 

 trees." 



Attention was now^ turned to growing oranges, and the 

 houses built for the shelter of these trees are the earliest kind 

 of conservatory. Very far removed from the modern glass 

 structure, they were like large rooms with big windows and a 

 stove or open fire to w^arm it in the coldest time, or " in default 

 of stoves or raised hearths you must attemper the air with pans 

 of Charcole." ^ The oranges were planted in cases, and were 

 lifted out to adorn the garden during the summer months, 

 but were " committed betimes into the conservatory." No 

 garden was complete without its "collection of choice greens.'" 

 Already in the time of Charles I. there existed several orangeries. 

 At Wimbledon, the favourite resort of Henrietta Maria, was 

 one of the finest examples. The orange garden was laid out 

 " in four knots," bordered with box, and turfed squares with 

 walks round them. In this the oranges stood out in tubs 

 in the summer time, and there was a garden house in the 

 orangery, where the trees, forty-two in number, were stored for 



* Rea, Flora, Ceres and Poinoiiir, 1665, also Sharrock. 



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