OF GARDENING. 



XXV 



the walls of their garden and herbary ; and about this time se- 

 veral kinds of fruits were in active cultivation. Mathew Paris, 

 speaking of the backwardness of the season at this period, 

 says, that "apples were scarce, pears still scarcer, but that 

 cherries, plums, figs, and all kinds of fruits included in shells, 

 were almost quite destroyed." 



Till about the beginning of the reign of Henry the Eighth, 

 many of the now more common culinary vegetables, such as 

 cabbages, &c., were imported from the Netherlands. It was 

 not, says Hume, till the end of the reign of that king that 

 any salads, carrots, turnips, or other edible roots, were pro- 

 duced in England, their culture not being properly under- 

 stood. About the end of this reign, some progress had been 

 made in the cultivation of vegetables and fruits ; for we are 

 informed that the king's gardener introduced musk-melons, 

 apricots, and Corinth grapes, and also that at the same period 

 different kinds of salads, herbs, and esculent roots, were 

 brought for the first time from Flanders. About this time, a 

 taste for florists' flowers began to be cultivated in England, 

 and it is supposed that they were introduced into this country 

 from Flanders, by the worsted manufacturers, during the per- 

 secutions of Philip the Second. It was also to the cruel- 

 ties of the Duke of Alva that we are indebted for receiving, 

 through the same channel, July flowers, carnations, and Pro- 

 vence roses. Flowers and shrubs appear, however, to have 

 been long known and prized before this time. 



Henry had a garden at his palace of Nonsuch, in Surrey, 

 which was enclosed with a wall fourteen feet high, and in 

 which the Kentish cherry was first cultivated in England. 

 During the succeeding reign of Elizabeth, gardening appears 

 to have made some farther progress, and it was at this period 

 that the tulip, the damask and musk roses, were first intro- 

 duced. Elizabeth is said to have been attached to flowers; 

 and Gerrard published his herbal, in which he mentions a 

 London apothecary, who was celebrated for growing tulips, 

 and rearing new varieties every year. Botanic gardens now 

 began to be established; that of the Duke of Somerset, at 

 Sion-House, seems to have been the first. Sir Walter Raieigh 

 introduced the potato and tobacco about this time ; and muny 



d 



