Gardens Past and Present 



PART I 



CHAPTER I 



IN THE FAR PAST 



" That which hath been is that which shall be; 

 and that which hath been done is that which shall 

 be done : and there is no new thing under the 

 sun. 



" Is there a thing whereof men say, See, this is 

 new? it hath been already in the ages which were 

 before us." ECCLES. i. 9, 10. 



SOME two thousand years ago, speaking in rough 

 numbers, when Rome was already hastening to 

 her fall, this England of ours consisted mainly of 

 huge tracts of forest and morass mist-laden, dank, 

 malarious in the lowlands. It was interspersed, 

 it is true, in the south with patches of grain hard 

 won from thicket or dune ; further north with a 

 few recovered breadths of thin pasture land whence, 

 in rude fashion, meat and milk and meal were 

 drawn from the sparse - tilled soil to feed 

 the fierce and untamed, but scanty tribes 

 that peopled Britain. There seemed little 



