Book I. 



GARDENING IN THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Mary appointed Plunkenet to be his successor, " a man distinguished for botanical knowledge." Under 

 tliis botanist's directions, collectors were despatched to the Indies in search of plants. 



Tradescant's botanic garden at Lambeth was establislied previously to 1629. Tradescant was a Dutch- 

 man, and gardener to Charles I. In his son published a catalogue of this garden, and of tiie museum, 

 which botli of them had collected, Weston observes {Catalogue of Authors on Gardening, 30.) tliat the 

 garden having for some years lain waste, on the 1st of May, 1749, William Watson, V. K. S., having 

 visited its site, found many of the exotics remaining, having endured two great frosts in 1729 and 1740. A 

 curious account of tlie garden is given by Sir W. Watson, in the Philosophical Transactions, (vol. xl.) 

 Tradescant left his museum to K AshraoU, who lodged in his house. Mrs'. Tradescant contested the will, 

 and on losing the cause drowned herself 



Tlie Chelsea botanic garden seems to have existed about the midiUe of this century. In 1685, Evelyn 

 visited Watts, their head gardener. " What was very ingenious, was the subterranean heat conveyed by 

 means of a stove under the conservatory, all vaulted with brick, so that he has the door and windows open 

 in the hardest frosts, excluding only the snow." {Memoirs, &c. vol. i. 60C.) In Watts's garden was a tuiip- 

 tree, and in the hot-house a tea-shrub. {Ray.) The ground occupied by tliis garden was rented from Sir 

 Hans Sloane j who afterwards, in 1722, when applied to for its renewal, granted it in perpetuity at 5/. a 

 year, and fifty new plants to be presented annually to the Royal Society, till their number amounted to 

 two thousand. 



Various private botanic gardens existed at the end of this century. That of the celebrated naturalist 

 Ray, in Essex, Dr. Uvedale's, at Entield, and especially that of the Duchess of Beaufort, at Badmington, 

 were rich in plants ; but that of Sir Hans Sloane, at Chelsea, surpassed them all. 



374. A public botanic garden in England was first founded at Oxford, in 1632, nearly 

 a century after that at Padua. This honor was reserved for Henry, Earl of Danby, who 

 gave for this purpose five acres of ground, built green-houses and stoves, and a house 

 for the accommodation of the gardener, endowed the establishment, and placed in it, as 

 a supervisor, Jacob Bobart, a German, from Brunswick, who lived, as Wood tells us, in 

 the garden-house, and died there in 1697. The garden contained at his death above 

 1600 species. Bobart's descendants are still in Oxford, and known as coach-proprietors. 



375. Green-houses and j)lant-stoves seem to have been introduced or invented about, 

 the middle of the seventeenth century. Tliey were fonned in the Altorf garden in 1645. 

 Evelyn mentions Loader's orangery in 1662, and the green-house and hot -house at 

 Chelsea are mentioned both by that author and Ray in 1685. 



376. During the lohole of the eighteenth century, botany was in a flourishing state in 

 England. Previously to this period the number of exotics in the country pro- 

 bably did not exceed 1000 species : during this century above 5000 new species were 

 introduced from foreign countries, besides the discovery of a number of new native 

 plants. Some idea may be formed of the progress of gardening, in respect to ornamental 

 trees and shrubs, from the different editions of Miller's dictionary. In the first edition 

 in 1724, the catalogue of evergreens amounts only to twelve. The Christmas-flower 

 and aconite were then rare, and only to be obtained at Fairchild's at Hoxton : only 

 seven species of geraniums were then known. Every edition of this work contained 

 fresh additions to the botany of the country. In the preface to the eighth and last edition, 

 published in 1768, the number of plants cultivated in England is stated to be more than, 

 double those which were known in 1731. Miller- was born in 1691; liis father was 

 gardener to the Company of Apothecaries, and he succeeded his father in that office in 

 1722, upon Sir Hans Sloane's liberal donation of near four acres to the Company. He 

 resigned his office a short time before his decease, which took place in 1771, and was 

 succeeded by Forsyth, who was succeeded by Fairbairn, and the last by Anderson the 

 present curator. 



377. As great encouragers of botany during this century, Miller mentions in 1724, 

 the Duke of Chandos, Compton Speaker of the House of Commons, Dubois of Mitcham,- 

 Compton Bishop of London, Dr. Uvedale of Enfield, Dr. Lloyd of Sheen. Dr. James 

 Sherrard, apothecary, had one of the richest gardens England ever possessed at Eltham. 

 His gardener, Knowlton, was a zealous botanist, and afterwards, when in the service of 

 the Ear] of Burlington, at Londesborough, discovered the globe coyiferva. Dr. 

 Sherrard's brother was consul at Smyrna, and had a fine garden at Scdokio, near that 

 town, where he collected the plants of Greece and many others. The consul died in 

 1728, and the apothecary in 1737. Fairchild, Gordon, Lee, and Gray of Fulham, 

 eminent nurserymen, introduced many plants during the first half of the century. The 

 first three corresponded with Linnteus. Collinson, a great promoter of gardening and 

 botany, had a fine garden at Mill-hill. Richard Warner had a good botanic garden at 

 Warnford Green. The Duke of Argyle, styled a tree-monger by Lord Walpolc, had 

 early in this century a garden at Hounslow, richly stocked with exotic trees. A nuin - 

 ber of other names of patrons, gardeners, and authors, equally deserving mention, are 

 necessarily omitted. Dr., afterwards Sir John Hill, had a botanic garden at Bayswater ; 

 he began to publish in 1751, and produced numerous works on plants and flowers, 

 which liad considerable influence in rendering popular the system of Linna?vis, and 

 spreading the science of horticulture, and a taste for ornamental plants. In 1775 Drs. 

 Fothergill and Pitcairn sent out Thomas Blaikie (170.) to collect plants in Switzer- 

 land, and this indefatigable botanist sent home all those plants mentioned in tlie Horlus 

 Jycwensis, as introduced by the two Doctors. 



378. ruling the latter part of the eighteenth oritury, Hibbert, of Chalfont, and 



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