HORTICULTURE. 



179 



*..;:.- 



Wor!,!,". 



r ' " 



Li- 



spent in the " ordering of fruit-trees." He was one of 

 the first who attended to the proper training and prun- 

 ing of wall tree* ; he boldly condemns the absurd taste, 

 then prevalent, of cutting fruit-trees into the shape of 

 lions or pyramid*, but he was not able to divest him- 

 self of the doctrine of the moon's influence, and the ne- 

 niislj of planting and pruning only at certain periods 

 of her waxing and waning. About the same time, 

 Or Kobert Sherrock published, The History of the 

 propagation and improvement of vegetables by the con- 

 currence of art and nature ;" a work containing a rea- 

 satiable portion of information, disguised with a good 

 iWl of pedantry. Soon after, John Rea, gent, publish- 

 ed his " Flora, or a complete Flonlege," folio ; in three 

 parts: " 1. Flora, treating of the choicest plant*, flowers 

 and fruits that will endure our winters ; 2. Ceres, con. 

 taining such plants or flowers m an yearly, or every 

 other year, raised from seeds ; 3. Pomona, fretting of the 



beat garden fruits, of evergreens, and 

 This was followed, first, by a " Syttema Agnadtttra" 

 and then by a " Syttma Horticuliura," by .1. \V. 

 (John Worlidge) gent. ; and by the publication of the 

 i-lish Gardener," by Leonard Meager, " above 

 thirty years a practitioner in the art of gardening." 

 This last contains a gnid itsil of useful information : it 

 is divided into three parts ; 1 . Of planting stocks, fruit- 

 trees, and shrubs ; X. Kitchen garden ; and, 3. Gar- 

 dta of pleasure- The second volume of Sir William 

 Temple's Miscellaneous Works, it may be mentioned, 

 contains a curious account of the state of gardening in 

 England in the close of the 17th century. 



1 1 . King William and Queen Mary appoint*. Dr Plu- 



of a Phytogrsphia and other works, to be 

 and, under his directions, collectors 

 were dispatched to the Indie* in sou eh of ornamental 

 plant* 



12. Early in the Ittheeartury, Lawrence 

 " The clergyman's Hecreatien, shewing the" 



and profc oYthe art of gii I. mil ft." Bat Richard Brad- 

 ley, F. R. S. and Profeuor of Botany at Cambridge, 

 soon sclipaed all other writers of this period, both for 

 the number and the influence of his horticultural jwhsv 

 cations. They exceeded twenty in number, and were 

 generally written in a popular style: several of them, 

 as might be expected, are mere compilations, and otntw 

 are avowed translations. The writings of Switzer, 

 bout the same time, also acquired a share of 

 They extend to us veammea in octavo, 



In I72+, appeared in two 

 first edition of the Gardeners Dictionary," by Philip 

 MmW, of the Botanic Garden at Chelsea. He pro. 

 feases to collect nod digest the labour* of hie priilim 

 4M ; but the book partakes largely of the character of 



dmbte pitch in Eogknd 'tiu'withni thirty ^eanULast 

 past, i. e. from. 1 90 downwards. Seven years after the 

 publication of the octavo edition, which is now very 

 scarce, the Ant folio edition came out. In the pifaii 

 he gives some accoiaMot anoent gardens, and alaoof 



m the time of 



i and Mary. The descriptions of 

 plants introduced into England, 

 during the first half of the 18th century, with details 



of horticultural improvements of different kinds, gra- Hinorv. 

 dually swelled the work to two volumes in folio. In X """Y"^*' 

 each successive edition (as observed by Dr Pulteney *) 

 it received such improvements and augmentations, as 

 have rendered it in the end the most complete body of 

 gardening extant. In evidence of the estimation in 

 which it is held on the Continent, it is enough to men- 

 tion that there are French, German and Dutch transla- 

 tions of it, and that some of the continental writers 

 bestow on the author Uie title of /lortnlaHorum jirinccp*. 

 Till the seventh edition, the system of Tournefort was 

 followed. In this the names and system of Linnaeus 

 were adopted. In the eighth edition, being the last 

 published by Miller himself, he informs us, that the 

 plants then cultivated in England (1768), were more 

 than double the number known when the first folio edition 

 appeared (1731.) In this edition the plants were first 

 distinguished by the short trivial names, invented by 

 Linrurui to supersede the tedious tpet-i/ic denominations 

 previously in use. The Gardener's Dictionary, it may 

 here be added, has since been enlarged and improved 

 by the late Professor Marty n of Cambridge, and brought 

 before the public in four volumes folio, forming, m he 

 very modestly styles it, " a digest of what was known 

 in gardening and botany at the end of the 18th centu- 

 ry ." This great undertaking occupied the learned and 

 pnsfreaor for nearly twenty years ; but it is a 



Ilitr. 



rk which will long maintain the horticultur.nl reign 

 of the name of Miller, and which is calculated at the 

 same time to establish his own fame. 



U. In the early part of Miller's time, Batty, I-ang. 

 ley, and Ellis, published various horticultural works of 

 some merit. In 1755 Thomas Hitt produced his 

 " Treatise on Fruit-Trees ;" and in it he proposed an 

 improved mode of training wall-trees, by regular hori- 

 zontal branches, with upright bearers. This is a work 

 well deserving of attention ; and the author has not, it 

 is believed, received all the praise to which he is en. 

 tided. While practical works such a* those now men- 

 tioned, engaged the attention of horticulturists in gene* 

 ral, some philosophical pieces alse appeared, and justly 

 acquired celebrity fur their authors ; particularly, 

 geuble Statin" by Hales, and the " Principles of Agri- 

 culture and Vegetation" by Dr Francis Home, father 

 of the present dsstinuished ufuftasii of Matena Mcdi- 



ca in the University of J 



15. From the middle I* the' end of the 18th cen- 

 tury, one of the most popular and useful writers on hor- 

 ticultural subjects was John Abercrombie, who, either Atxrcrom- 

 from diffidence or some other motive, at first published bi '< 

 his writing* under the borrowed name of Tkomai Mime. 

 It is said be wea patronized and encouraged by the 

 celebrated Dr Oliver Goldsmith, lie was tie son of a 

 market-gardener near Edinburgh, and had gone into 

 Fngtann when a young man, and after acting as a 

 workman for some years at Kew Gardens, had been 

 enabled to begin bnsmsss as a nurseryman at Hackney. 

 The work entitled " Every Man his own Gardener" has 

 passiH through at least twenty editions. This is form- 

 ed on the plan of a calendar, containing practical in- 

 (tractions under detached monthly heads. Before his 

 death, which happened in 1806, he had prepaied an. 

 other work, entitled " The Practical Gardener," in 

 which the systematic method U adopted, of connecting 

 under one article every thing relative to the culture of 

 the same plant. This but lias been published in the 

 form of a thick duodecimo volume. He wrote alio, 



of Botany in England, Vol. II. 



