SE r ■EXTEEXTH CEXTL 'R ] '. 



ly") 



treatment of plants in cases is thus quoted by Rea : — ■" In spring 

 and autumn 30U must take some of the earth out of the cases, 

 and open the rest with a fork or other fit tool ... fill up again 

 with rank earth two parts dung well rotted." That orange-trees, 

 however, were still considered a great novelty, the following 

 extract from Pepys' Diary will show : — " 25 June 1666. Mrs. 

 Pen carried us to two gardens at Hackney (which I every day 

 grow more and more in love with) Mr. Drake's one, where the 

 garden is good, and house and prospect admirable, the other my 

 Lord Brooke's, where the gardens are much better, but the 

 house not so good nor prospect good at all. But the gardens 

 are excellent, and here I first saw oranges grow, some green, 

 some half, some a quarter, and some full ripe, on the same tree, 



ORANGERIE AT CHISWICK. FRi.M AX ENGRAVING EY RdCgUE, IJju. 



and one fruit of the same tree do come a year or two after the 

 other; I pulled off a little one by stealth (the man being 

 mightily curious of them) and eat it, and it was just as other 

 little green small oranges are — as big as half the end of my 

 little finger. Here were also a great variety of other exotique 

 plants, and several Labyrinths, and a pretty aviary." He visited 

 this garden on a former occasion. May 8th, 1654, and says of 

 it : — " One of the neatest and most celebrated in England," but 

 either the oranges were not there then, or he did not see them. 

 Gardeners seem to have understood that a certain amount of 

 air was necessary for plant life, but I think they by no means 

 realized the power of light. Sharrock, writing on the subject, 

 comes to the conclusion that " the coldness and briskness of the 

 free air . . . produces verdure," and to prove this, he takes for 



13 * 



