vi PREFACE. 



that it is not in my power, for many reasons (declining 

 health being one), to supply any of the desiderata 

 there alluded to. The Catalogue Raisonne, as well 

 as the Biography of some early Horticulturists, would 

 find, we all know, abundant materials towards com- 

 posing them in many rich pages in the Encyclopaedia 

 of Gardening, and in the libraries of Oxford, Cam- 

 bridge, the British Museum, in those of the late Sir 

 Joseph Banks, and of the present W. Forsyth, Esq., 

 and in those of the London, Caledonian, and other 



Rouen, several Anglo-Norman MS8. on the cultivation of cider, and 

 on general agriculture, and very possibly there may be some con- 

 cerning horticulture. Many libraries on the Continent, no doubt, 

 will throw light on this subject, particularly those of Ghent, 

 Bruges, Brussels, and Holland. 



' 2. A curious work might be formed by giving copies of some of 

 those plates which adorn many old books which contain descrip- 

 tions of some of our Old English Gardens, belonging to our ancient 

 religious houses, or to the mansions of our old nobility and gentry. 

 Some of these plates are by admirable foreign engravers. They 

 might be classed under each county, and brought down to the 

 demise of George II. 



' Ray dedicates his Flora to Lady Gerrard, of Gerrard's Bromley, 

 in Staffordshire. Plot gives a plate of this mansion, and part of its 

 garden. See also the garden in Vertue's fine whole-length print of 

 Sir P. Sydney. Perhaps there may be somewhere a plate of Sir 

 W. Raleigh's garden at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire. We have this 

 account of his house: "A most fyne house, beautified with 



