KITCHEN GARDENING UNDER JAMES I. 135 



Gerard gives five pictures of what he calls " tame " or 

 " manured " vines. He advises " shavings of horn disposed 

 about the roots, to cause fertility." Parkinson's list includes 

 twenty-three names. He says that Tradescant grew twenty 

 sorts, but " he never knew how or by what name to call them." 

 " The ordinary grape, both white and red, which excelleth 

 crabs for verjuyce, and is not fit for wine with us," was probably 

 what was usually grown in vineyards, the choicer sorts being 

 only found, as these old writers would say, in the gardens of the 

 curious. He has on his list black and white " Muscadine," and 

 the " Frontignack " ; the other names are such as the " claret 

 wine grape," " the Rhenish wine grape." Piatt gives several 

 recipes for keeping grapes — in pots covered with sand, the 

 bunch hung up with the end of the stalk stuck in an apple ; or 

 he says they can be preserved on the vine by covering the 

 bunches with oiled paper. He constantly refers to the vine- 

 yard, and how to " order " and plant it. The way he classes 

 the orchard and vineyard together shows the latter was by no 

 means uncommon : " Master Pointer keepeth conies in his 

 orchard, onely to keepe downe the grasse low ; . . . also in vine- 

 yards the use is to tume up the ground with a shallow plough, 

 as often as any grasse offereth to spring, but I think the preven- 

 tion of grass in orchard and vineyard is much better, if it were 

 not too costly." Piatt maintains that there is no reason why 

 English wine should not be as good as that on the Continent. 

 He attributes the ill-success in England to the bad way the 

 vines were pruned, and he accuses " the extreme negligence and 

 blockish ignorance of our people, who do most unjustly lay 

 their wrongful accusations upon the soil, whereas the greatest, 

 if not the whole fault, justly may be removed upon them- 

 selves." 



The vineyards attached to the royal gardens at Windsor 

 and Westminster were still flourishing. In 1618 fish-ponds 

 were made in the " vine garden " at Westminster, " for the 

 king's cormorants, ospreys and otters."^ At Oatlands, in 

 Surrey, there also appears to have been a vineyard, as pay- 

 ments occur in 16 19 for " planting of new and rare fruits, 

 flowers, herbs, and trees," in the King's garden there, and " for 

 * Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, James I,, by Devon, 1836. 



