xxvi 



RISE AND PROGRESS 



other eminent persons now began to collect different varieties 

 of fruits and vegetables from all parts of the world. During 

 this reign, Hatfield, Holland-House, and many other noted 

 places, were planted, and considerable attention paid to land- 

 scape gardening. The pleasure-garden appears to have been 

 reserved for Elizabeth's reign, when a square parterre was 

 enclosed with walls, scooped into fountains, and heaved into 

 terraces. During this Princess's reign, there was an Italian 

 who visited England, and published, in 1586, a thick volume 

 of Latin poems, in one of which, called the Royal Garden, 

 he describes a labyrinth, and hints at Her Majesty being cu- 

 rious in flowers. 



Charles the First appears to have been the first monarch 

 who patronized gardening to any extent in this country. His 

 kitchen gardener was Tradescant, a Dutchman ; and Parkinson 

 was his botanic gardener, or herbalist, who was the first author, 

 according to Mr. Neill, of any thing like an original work on 

 English gardening. Cauliflowers and celery were then as 

 great rarities as peas in the time of Henry the Eighth ; po- 

 tatoes were then rare, and the Jerusalem artichoke was in 

 common use. Parkinson describes 58 sorts of apples, Gi< of 

 pears, 61 plums, 21 peaches, 5 nectarines, 6 apricots, oG 

 cherries, 23 vines, 3 figs, with quinces, medlars, almonds, 

 walnuts, filberts, and the common small fruits : an amazing- 

 catalogue of fruits for those days. 



About this time, florists' flowers were cultivated among all 

 the manufacturing people of Norwich, London, Manchester, 

 Bolton, &c. Oranges and myrtles were cultivated at Kew, 

 Ham-house, &c. ; and the larch, which now rears its head on 

 almost every bleak mountain in Scotland, was then a green- 

 house shrub, and kept as a curiosity, and the almost equally 

 hardy laurel was then protected from the nipping frosts of win- 

 ter by being covered over with a blanket. 



Cromwell was a great promoter of agriculture and garden- 

 ing ; and his soldiers, whithersoever they went, introduced all 

 the latest improvements in those two important and profitable 

 branches of human industry. They introduced cabbages into 

 (he north of Scotland, when quartered at Inverness. 



After the restoration of Charles the Second, that moiiarch 



