82 Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. 



exhibited a flora analogous to that of the 

 cottage ground. 



" I see," he says, " the beds of larkspur with purple 

 eyes ; tall hollyhocks, red and yellow ; the broad sun- 

 flowers, caked in gold, with bees buzzing round them ; 

 wildernesses of pinks and hot-glowing peonies ; 

 poppies run to seed, the sugared lily, and faint 

 mignonette." 



He remembered, too, the barberries, which 

 he had seen in America, while he was there 

 from 1783 to 1787. 



"The taste of barberries which have hung out in 

 the snow during the severity of a North- American 

 winter, I have in my mouth still, after an interval of 

 thirty years ; for I have met with no other taste in all 

 that time at all like it. It remains by itself, almost 

 like the impression of a sixth sense." 



The early gardener restricted his culture 

 to the proper periods for planting and sow- 

 ing, and that was partly influenced by the 

 writings of the ancients, or traditional pre- 

 cepts derived from them, and partly by 

 astrological laws. He was not altogether 

 ignorant of professional subtleties, for it 



