44 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



even the thirteenth-century Englishman had a stan- 

 dard of excellence to stir ambition. Other garden 

 flowers mentioned in Alexander's observations are 

 the sunflower, the iris and narcissus. 



The garden described by Necham [bespeaks an 

 amount of taste in the arrangement of the herbs, 

 plants, and fruit-trees, but in the main it corresponds 

 with our kitchen-garden. The next English writer 

 upon gardens in point of date is Johannes de Gar- 

 landia, an English resident in France ; but here is 

 a description of the writer's garden at Paris. The 

 ground here described consists of shrubbery, wood, 

 grove, and garden, and from the account given it is 

 inferred that both in matters of taste and in the 

 horticultural and floral products of the garden, France 

 had advanced farther than England in garden-craft 

 in the fourteenth century, which is the date of the 

 book. 



In Mr. Hudson Turner's " Observations on the 

 State of Horticulture in England " * in olden times 

 he gives notices of the early dates in which the rose 

 was under cultivation. In the thirteenth century 

 King John sends a wreath of roses to his lady-love. 

 Chronicles inform us that roses and lilies were 

 among the plants bought for the Royal Garden at 

 Westminster in 1276; and the annual rendering of 

 a rose is one of the commonest species of quit-rent 

 in ancient conveyances, like the " pepper-corn " of 

 later times. The extent to which the culture of the 

 rose was carried is inferred from the number of sorts 



* "Archaeological Journal," vol. v., p. 295. 



