88 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I. 



391. The botanic garden of the Dublin Society was established in 1*90, chiefly through 

 the exertions of Dr. Waller Wade. It contains upwards of thirty acres, delightfully 

 situated, and very ingeniously arranged. 



392. There are a few private collections in Ireland ; and one of the best flower-gardens 

 is that of Lord Downes, at Merville, near Dublin ; but, in general, it may be stated, that 

 ornamental culture of every kind is in its infancy in that country. Something will pro- 

 bably be effected by the Dublin Horticultural Society, established in 1816. 



Sect. III. British Gardening, in reject to its horticultural Productions 



393. The knowledge of culinary vegetables and cultivated fruits was first introduced to 

 this country by the Romans ; and it is highly probable that the more useful sorts of the 

 former, as the brassica, and onion tribe, always remained in use among the civilised parts 

 of the inhabitants, since kale and leeks are mentioned in some of the oldest records, and 

 the Saxon month April was called Sprout Kale. 



i 394. The native fruits of the British isles, and which, till the 13th or 14th century, must 

 have been the only sorts known to the common people, are the following : small purple 

 plums, sloes, wild currants, brambles and raspberries, wood strawberries, cranberries, 

 black-berries, red-berries, heather-berries, elder-berries, roan-berries, haws, holly-berries, 

 hips, hazel-nuts, acorns, and beech-mast. The wild apple or crab, and wild cherry, 

 though now naturalised, would probably not be found wild, or be very rare in the early 

 times of which we now speak. The native roots and leaves would be earth-nut, and any 

 other roots not remarkably acrid and bitter ; and chenopodium, sorrel, dock, and such 

 leaves as are naturally rather succulent and mild in flavor. 



395. The more delicate fruits and legumes, introduced by the Romans, would, in all 

 probability, be lost after their retirement from the island, and we may trace with more 

 certainty the origin of what we now possess to the ecclesiastical establishments of the 

 dark ages, and during the reign in England of the Norman line, and the Plantagenets. 

 It may in general be asserted, that most of our best fruits, particularly apples and pears, 

 were brought into the island by ecclesiastics in the days of monastic splendor and luxury, 

 during the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Gardens and orchards (horti et pomaria) 

 are frequently mentioned in the earliest chartularies extant ; and of the orchards many 

 traces still remain in different parts of the country, in the form, not only of enclosure- 

 walls and prepared fruit-tree borders, but of venerable pear-trees, some of them still 

 abundantly fruitful, and others in the last stage of decay. Of the state of horticulture 

 previous to the beginning of the 16th century, however, no distinct record exists. About 

 that time it began to be cultivated in England, and at more recent periods in Scotland 

 and Ireland. 



Subsect. 1. Gardening in England, i?i respect to its horticultural Productions. 



396. The earliest notice of English horticulture which we have met with, is in Gale's 

 History of Ely, and William of Malmsbury, and belongs to the twelfth century. Brithnod, 

 the first abbot of Ely, in 1107, is celebrated for his skill in gardening, and for the ex- 

 cellent gardens and orchards which he made near that monastery. " He laid out very 

 extensive gardens and orchards, which he filled with a great variety of herbs, shrubs, and 

 fruit-trees. In a few years the trees which he planted and ingrafted, appeared at a dis- 

 tance like a wood, loaded with the most excellent fruits in great abundance, and added 

 much to the commodiousness and beauty of the place." {Gale's Hist, of Ely, 2. c. ii.) 

 William of Malmsbury speaks of the abundance of vineyards and orchards in the vale of 

 Gloucester. At Edmondsbury, a vineyard was planted for the use of the monki of that 

 place, in 1140. 



397. In the thirteenth century (A. D. 1294), the monks of Dunstable were at much ex- 

 pense in repairing the walls about the garden and herbary of their priory ; and the her- 

 bary mentioned in Chaucer's Nonne's Priest's Tale, appears to have been well stored with 

 medical herbs, shrubs, &c. Paris, in describing the backwardness of the seasons in 

 1257, says, that " apples were scarce, pears still scarcer; but that cherries, plums, figs, 

 and all kinds of fruits included in shells, were almost quite destroyed." (Henry's Hist. 

 b. iv. chap. 5. sect. 1.) 



398. Previously to the sixteenth century, it is generally said, that some of our most com- 

 mon pot-herbs, such as cabbages, were chiefly imported from the Netherlands, their cul- 

 ture not being properly understood in this country. " It was not," says Hume, "till the 

 end of the reign of Henry VIII. that any salads, carrots, turnips, or other edible roots, 

 were produced in England. The little of these vegetables that was used, was formerly 

 imported from Holland and Flanders. Queen Catherine, when she wanted a salad, was 

 obliged to despatch a messenger thither on purpose." (Hist, of Eng. anno 1547.) Fuller, 

 in 1660, speaking of the gardens of Surrey, says, Gardening was first brought into Eng- 

 land for profit about seventy years ago ; before which we fetched most of our cherries 

 from Holland, apples from France, and hardly had a mess of ra?th-ripe peas, but from 

 Holland, which were dainties for ladies ; they came so far and cost so dear. Since gar- 



