Preliminaries. 7 



writers as Petrus de Crescentiis of Bologna, 

 whose Ruralia Commoda appeared at Florence 

 in 1471, helped to carry down the old Roman 

 traditions and experiments, and constituted 

 a link between ancient and modern agricul- 

 tural economy. 



Until certain later publications enjoyed 

 a long run and experienced a succession of 

 issues during forty or fifty years, even when 

 they had been, in some measure, superseded, 

 like Mrs. Loudon's botanical manuals, the 

 books on gardening do not appear, as a rule, 

 to have had a very prolonged life, or to 

 have often passed into a second impression. 

 Evelyn's Kalendarium Hortense, which first 

 came out in 1664, and arrived at a tenth im- 

 pression in 1706, was an exceptional long- 

 liver. 



This fact may be possibly explained by the 

 preference of those, who felt an interest in the 

 subject, for actual practice, and the appeal 

 of the majority of publications to the 

 book-buyer rather than the horticulturist. 

 Besides, the proportion of persons of both 

 sexes, whose education enabled them to 



