86 Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. 



historical and literary evidences, one is irre- 

 sistibly led to the conclusion, that the facilities 

 possessed by the fifteenth-century gardener 

 and husbandman, while they were of course 

 vastly inferior to those in our hands, were 

 neither scanty nor relatively barbarous. 



In the treatise of Walter de Biblesworth 

 (fourteenth century), which is a general man- 

 ual of education and demeanour, the author 

 instructs his reader, as children of good 

 right love to eat apples, to pare the fruit, 

 take out the stalks, and plant the pips. 



In his Fantasticks (1626) Breton says, 

 under March: 



" The dayes begin to lengthen apace : the forward 

 Gardens give many a fine Sallet ; and a nose-gay of 

 violets is a present for a Lady : the Prime- Rose is 

 now in his Prime, and the Trees begin to bud, and 

 the green spices (spikes) of grasse to peep out of the 

 earth. Now is Nature as it were waking out of her 

 sleep. 



" It is now time, honest Country-man, to make an 

 end of sowing of all sorts of small pulse. GrafFe all 

 sorts of fruit-trees, and with young Plants and Syens 

 (scions) replenish your Nurcery. Cover the roots of 

 all Trees that are bared, and with fat and pregnant 



