344 [Assembly 



China to Peru, the amateur gardener can hardly get on with 

 satisfaction to himself, especially among his tlowers, without ac- 

 quiring some knowledge of botanical arrangement, and, there- 

 fore, at this point of our discourse, let us give the beginner a 

 caution not to be persuaded into the belief that the Linnsean sys- 

 tem is altogether obsolete and good for nothing. 



Some complaint is made against the system adopted by Dr. 

 Lindley in his vegetable kingdom. Evelyn helps to mark the 

 introduction of several of our cultivated vegetables. Of Arti- 

 chaux, he tells us, (Acetari:) 'Tis not very long since this noble 

 thistle came first into Italy, improved to this magnitude by cult- 

 ure, and so rare in England that they were commonly sold for 

 crowns apiece; but what Carthage spent in them, as Pliny com- 

 putes the sum, amounted to sestertia sena millia, or thirty thou- 

 sand pounds sterling. Note. — That of the Spanish Cardon, a 

 wild and smaller artichoke with sharp pointed leaves and lesser 

 head, the stalks being blanched and tender, are served up a la 

 poiverade — that is, with oil, pepper, &c., as th'e French term is. 



Of Pompey's beloved dish, so highly celebrated by old Cato, 

 he says : " 'Tis scarce an hundred years since we first had cabba- 

 ges out of Holland. Sir Anthony Ashley, of Wiburg, St. Giles, 

 in Dorsetshire, (ancestor of the Earl of Shaftesbury,) being as I 

 am told, the first who planted them in England. Of the melon 

 he bids us note that this fruit w^as very rarely cultivated in Eng- 

 land, so as to bring it to maturity, till Sir George Gardner came 

 out of Spain, I myself remembering when an ordinary melon 

 would have been sold for five or six shillings, (^1.50.) Spinach 

 was " by original a Spaniard." Zarragon also, and the cauli- 

 flower (anciently unknown,) from Aleppo. Asparagus was a 

 favorite vegetable with Cato. Onions are incrutable. Others 

 are quite modern upstarts. Sea kale is one of these, and a true 

 Britisli dish it is. Mr. Curtis, in his " Directions for cultivating 

 the Crambe Mariiima or Sea kale, (in 1799,) tells us : 



" Mr. William Jones, of Chelsea, saw bundles of it in a culti- 

 vated state, exposed for sale in Chichester Market in the year 

 1753. I learn from difi'erent persons that attempts have been 

 made at various times to introduce it into the London markets, 

 hut ineffectually. 



