III. 



ELIZABETHAN GARDENING THE EARLIEST 

 GARDENER'S CALENDAR BACON AND 

 EVELYN. 



[ARRISON, in his Description of 

 England (1586), imputes to our 

 wealth and idleness the neglect 

 or loss of many articles of food, and 

 even of luxury, which had been plentiful 

 under the earlier Plantagenets. But he 

 chronicles a great revival under the Tudors, 

 and assures us that in his time not only the 

 better classes, but the poor commons, had 

 plenty of melons, pumpkins, gourds, cucum- 

 bers, radishes, skirrets, parsneps, carrots, 

 cabbages, turnips, and all kinds of salad 

 herbs, as he calls them. Hops were also 

 once more cultivated, he informs us, and the 

 great difficulty as to poles surmounted by 



