26 Horticulture in Ireland. 



Art. III. Notes on the former and present State of Horticulture in 

 Ireland. By Mr. John Robertson, F.H.S. 



Sir, 



I send you the following memoranda, partly taken from an 

 article entitled " Dubliniana " in the Pilot newspaper of No- 

 vember 9., and partly my own remarks on the memoranda, and 

 on the former and present state of horticulture in this country. 



" The Use of Sea-kale as an escident Vegetable is supposed to 

 be of recent date, and was first introduced, as has been said, 

 by the present Bishop of Carlisle, who cultivated it in his gar- 

 den for asparagus; but, so long ago as the year 1764, this 

 plant was cultivated in the gardens of Dublin, and the seeds 

 sold in the shops. When the seeds were sown, they were 

 covered over with gravel ; the shoots were used in spring, as 

 they are now, and preferred to any other species of kale. It 

 was the practice, however, to boil them in two different waters, 

 to extract the salt, with which the plant was supposed to be 

 impregnated, from its marine origin. The valuable property, 

 also, which distinguishes it from other kales, that the root is 

 perennial, and will bear cutting for forty years, was well 

 known. {Tutty^ vol. i. p. 4.) The sea-kale grows at present, 

 in great abundance, on every part of the sandy shores around 

 the bay of Dublin, and is cultivated in every garden in and 

 near the city. 



" Pine-apples were first brought to Dublin by a man of the 

 name of Buller, who, in the reign of Queen Anne, settled in 

 the vicinity of Dublin, and held an extensive nursery in New 

 Street, where traces remain of it to this day. 



" In the reign of George I., the Hugonots established a Flo- 

 rists' Club, for the purpose of promoting the cultivation of 

 flowers, and held their meetings at the Rose tavern, Drum- 

 condra. They were continued until the reign of George II. ; 

 but the science of gardening was, from that time, entirely 

 neglected, until a number of the principal gardeners, in the 

 vicinity of Dublin, assembled at the Rose tavern, Drumcon- 

 dra, on Sept. 30. 1816, and formed themselves into a Horticul- 

 tural Society." 



The writer must have been misinformed when he says that 

 pine-apples were introduced to Dublin in the reign of Queen 

 Anne. They were only cultivated in England late in that 

 reign, for the first time. If introduced first to Dublin by 

 Buller, it should have been the reign of George II. : there 

 were but two nurserymen of that name there in succession. I 

 recollect having seen the younger Buller myself, at his seed- 

 shop in Pill Lane, about the year 1776. The elder was in 



