Elizabethan Gardening. 2 3 



the establishment of ashyards, whence the 

 hop-growers could be supplied from season 

 to season. Tusser, before Harrison's time, 

 lays down regulations for the culture of the 

 hop and the arrangement of hopyards; but 

 perhaps the earliest monograph on the sub- 

 ject is that of Reginald Scot, who published 

 his Perfect Platform of a Hop Garden in 

 I574. 1 It seems, from Harrison's account, 

 that our gardens in Elizabeth's reign were 

 beginning to wear a very improved aspect, 

 not only as regarded the variety of flowers, 

 trees, and herbs, but as regarded the colour 

 and size of the species, which the nurserymen 

 and others were then taking great pains to 

 study and develop. At this period the spirit 

 of adventure, which led many of our country- 

 men to explore distant regions, gave a 

 powerful stimulus to botanical science, and 

 was of infinite service to our horticulturists 

 and florists, as the vessels which had touched 



1 Lysons notes that in 1 792 about seven arres were 

 employed in Barnes, Surrey, as a hopyard, a cir- 

 cumstance to be remarked, since nowhere else in the 

 vicinity or county has such a crop been grown within 

 memory. 



