GILBERT WHITE 181 



misterieux, les formes dissemblables, les effets plus apper^us que 

 leurs principes, les accidents qui combattent la regularite offriront 

 les moyens les plus favorables au decorateur. La precision du 

 trait, la proprete des details seront les recherches de PArchitecture ; 

 une certaine indecision pleine d'agremens, cette negligence qui 

 sied si bien a la Nature seront les finesses de 1'Art des Jardins. 

 Essai sur les Jardins^ \ 7 74. 



A S to the produce of a Garden, every middle-aged person of GILBERT 

 ** observation may perceive, within his own memory, both in of SELBORNE 

 town and country, how vastly the consumption of vegetables is (1720-1793). 

 increased. Green stalls in cities now support multitudes in a 

 comfortable state, while gardeners get fortunes. Every decent 

 labourer also has his garden, which is half his support as well as 

 his delight ; and common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, 

 and greens, for their hinds to eat with their bacon; and those 

 few that do not are despised for their sordid parsimony, and 

 looked upon as regardless of the welfare of their dependants. 

 Potatoes have prevailed in this little district by means of 

 premiums, within these twenty years only, and are much 

 esteemed here now by the poor, who would scarce have ven- 

 tured to taste them in the last reign. 



Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage, 

 because they call the month of February Sprout-cale ; but long 

 after their days, the cultivation of gardens was little attended to. 

 The religious being men of leisure, and keeping up a constant 

 correspondence with Italy, were the first people among us that 

 had gardens and fruit-trees in any perfection, within the walls of 

 their abbies, priories, and monasteries, where the lamp of know- 

 ledge continued to burn, however dimly. In them men of business 

 were formed for the state : the art of writing was cultivated by the 

 monks ; they were the only proficients in mechanics, gardening, 

 and architecture. The barons neglected every pursuit that did 

 not lead to war, or tend to the pleasure of the chase. 



It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horticulture 



