6 GARDENS OF ENGLAND 



a lost art. It is true that at the end of the four- 

 teenth century, when Piers the Ploughman made 

 his complaint, the farmer, if he had little else to 

 keep hunger from the door until August brought 

 the new com, could boast at least of " parsley and 

 leeks and many cabbage plants," but a little later 

 on, during the Tudor dynasty, so much elementary 

 husbandry as even this implies had disappeared in 

 the harsh misery of the times, for old records reveal 

 that the Royal table itself had to be supplied with 

 "sallets of herbs" brought over from Holland, 

 while many a stout Dutch sloop carried its cargo of 

 onions and carrots to Hull for the use of wealthy 

 EngUsh nobles and well-to-do merchants. Luxuries 

 such as these were not for the poor, for in those 

 days, when "a sum equal to twenty shillings was 

 paid at that port for six cabbages and a few carrots,' 

 a cabbage, from its rarity, was a gift worth ojBfering. 

 Thus, languishing, did the art of gardening stand 

 stationary, until troubles and persecutions abroad 

 made England, as she has ever been, a house of 

 refuge, among more exalted persons, for Flemish 

 weavers and cloth-workers. It is far from im- 

 probable that we may look back as far as to the 

 reign of Queen Elizabeth for that reawakening of 

 cottage gardening which has never since lost its 



