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A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



and went through several editions. But httle notice has been 

 taken of the author, who was much more old-fashioned than his 

 contemporaries. This book, in a quiet way, gives a great deal of 

 practical information about fruit and kitchen-gardening, and his 

 " Catalogue of Flowers," " such as are only for ornament in their 

 places where they grow, or for nose-gays," reminds us more of 

 Parkinson than of Evelyn or London and Wise. He calls the 

 flowers all by their homely English names : — Such as Coventry 

 Bell flowers {Campanula Medium), Melancholy Gentlemen [Hesperis 



NETHEKTON. FROM A SKETCH BY EDMOND PRIDEAUX, I727. 



tristis), Goat's Rue [Galcga officinalis), None-such or flower of 

 Bristol [Lychnis chalcedonica) and King's Spear, yellow and white 

 (Asphodelns). Meager, on the title-page of the 1688 edition of his 

 book, says he had been " Thirty years a Practitioner in the Art of 

 Gardening." From the dedication, it appears that for many 

 years he was gardener to Philip Hollman, of Warkworth, in the 

 county of Northampton. The Hollmans were a good old family, 

 and Philip, who died in 1669, seems to have encouraged Meager 

 in his work, as indeed Meager adds he assisted all his "other 



