OF GARDENING. 



xxvii 



introduced French gardening ; and, to carry his plans into 

 execution, brought over from France, Le Notre, the celebrated 

 French landscape gardener, who planted Greenwich and St. 

 James's parks, Carlton and Marlborough gardens. Charles 

 the Second is supposed, by Daines Barrington, to have had 

 the first hot-houses and ice-houses erected in this country, 

 although certain fruits had been long before reared and brought 

 to maturity, by the power of dung-heat, by the London 

 gardeners. 



In this reign flourished the celebrated Evelyn, who was a 

 scientific promoter of gardening, and whose Sylva, and other 

 works, still remain to adorn the literature of the country. Sir 

 William Temple not only wrote on gardening, but also prac- 

 tised it, to a considerable extent, at his seat at East Sheen, to 

 which place he introduced from the continent some of our 

 best peaches, apricots, cherries, and gi^apes. He also attended 

 particularly to the training of his trees on the walls, a system 

 of management at that time in its infancy, and deemed by 

 many of the most celebrated horticulturists of the day as an 

 innovation on the order of Nature, and checking the luxuriance 

 of the fruit-tree. 



The gardens of Kew then belonged to Sir Henry Capel, 

 where he is said to have had the choicest collection of fruits 

 in England, and that he was better versed in the management 

 of them than any other living horticulturist. Daines Barrington 

 supposes him to have been the first person of our nobility who 

 paid any attention to their gardens, or bestowed any expense 

 in the cultivation of them. 



About the beginning of the eighteenth century, horticulture 

 began to assume a new character. The culinary and fruit- 

 gardens were not only assiduously and successfully cultivated, 

 but forcing had been tried to a considerable extent. In 

 1719, pine-apples were successfully cultivated at Richmond, 

 by Mathew Decker, and afterwards by Blackburn, in Lanca- 

 shire. The vine was cultivated at Rotherhithe, by Warner, 

 who is said to have raised from seed the species still called 

 Warner's Black Hamburg, The first instance we have on 

 record of the successful forcing of the vine, took place at Bel- 

 voir Castle in 1705. 



