8 GARDENS OF ENGLAND 



country villages. It was about the same period 

 that a wave of scientific research — botanical, in 

 common with other branches of learning — swept 

 over Europe, and horticulture was eagerly taken 

 up — as a pastime by the wealthy no less than as 

 an aid to study by the scholar. Yet it is doubtful 

 whether the leaven of gardening would have 

 penetrated our English country life in the wide- 

 spread manner that it has, had not men, of 

 foreign extraction indeed, but of the like grade 

 in Ufe with the labourer and the artisan, pointed 

 the way. 



By these means, it came to pass that many a 

 rare plant and bulb — relics of old homes gone 

 beyond recall — found a passage, with onions and 

 cabbages, over the storm-tossed waters of the 

 North Sea into English gardens; and still more, 

 perhaps, crossed the Channel from the opposite 

 coast of France. For, with regard to decorative 

 gardening, it is possible that, even more than to 

 Flemish cloth-workers, we are indebted to the 

 French silk-weavers who settled in Spitalfields — 

 rural enough in those days^and whose love for 

 floriculture was remarkable. With many of these 

 fugitive Huguenots the tending of plants was a 

 veritable passion — a solace, besides, to allay the 



