l6o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



The progress, during the middle part of this period, was 

 in the culture of economic plants, and not in garden design, 

 or in the flower-garden. Many of the old superstitions about 

 plants were exposed. Austen fills several pages in contradict- 

 ing old-fashioned notions — " Errors discovered," he calls it — 

 such things as writing an inscription on a peach-stone or almond, 

 and planting it, expecting the same writing to appear in the 

 ripe fruit of the tree ; or : " To have all stone fruit taste as yee 

 shall think good, lay the stones to soak in such liquor as yee 

 would have them taste of "; or again : " To have red apples, put 

 the grafts into Pikes' blood." He thus sums up such-like 

 recipes : " These things cannot be." " Errors in practice " 

 he seeks to correct also, and shows much good sense in his 

 remarks on planting or moving fruit-trees : " Many remove 

 their trees in Winter or neere the Spring, whereas they ought 

 to remove them in September or thereabouts." Another error 

 was " planting trees too neere together ; I account 10 or 12 

 yards a competant distance for Apple-trees or Pear-trees, for 

 Cherry or Plum 7 or 8." Many plant " too old trees in orchards, 

 and neglect to plant their trees in as good or better soyle, then 

 that from which they are removed." He points out some of 

 the writings in which such errors were to be found. " The 

 Countryman's Recreation, 1640, is full of these fancies," also 

 in the works of " Didymus " or Thomas Hill, and the Country 

 Farm, by Gabriel Plat. The necessity of refuting such errors 

 shows how primitive many gardeners still must have been in 

 their ideas. A small work on fruit-trees by Francis Drope in 

 1672 is free from absurdities ; but Adam Speed's book, a few 

 years later than Austen's, is full of errors as apparently ludicrous 

 as those " discovered " by Austen, so gradual is the passage 

 " from darkness to dawn." Only two of his solemn assertions 

 need be quoted as specimens : " To make white lilies become 

 red, fill a hole in a lily root with any red colour," and " the 

 roots of roses set among broom will bring forth yellow Roses." 

 He suggests that sow thistles should be planted, as " they 

 will maintain " " calves, lambs, pigs . . . and millions of rabbits," 

 and Jerusalem artichokes, because they would " feed poultry 

 and swine." Some of his remarks, however, are more sensible ; 

 for instance, he observes of potatoes, " they will make very 



