304 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



VV^illiam of Malmesbury says, that the gi\ipes produced in the 

 vale of Gloucester were of the sweetest taste, and made most 

 excellent wines. These vineyards were the sole property of 

 the great barons, the monks, and abbots. 



Although we have no vestiges remaining of the vineyards of 

 the monastic times, yet we have many specimens o-f their 

 orchards, which are still, in several instances, in a productive 

 states and although Henry the Eighth, by destroying many of 

 the religious houses, dispersed and humbled the clergy, still 

 he was attentive to the cultivation of fruits, and in his long 

 reign, many were introduced into this country, amongst which, 

 we are informed, were apricots, melons, and Corinth grapes. 

 This monarch, at his palace of Nonsuch, in Surrey, culti- 

 vated in a walled garden, the then astonishing number of two 

 hundred and twelve fruit-trees. In the same reign, Derby- 

 shire and Lancashire were both celebrated for orchards, and 

 Gloucestershire and Herefordshire long before that period. 

 About the beginning of the sixteenth century, Arnold's Chroni- 

 cles appeared, in which the art of grafting, planting, and 

 altering fruits, both in color and taste, are treated on, and it 

 appears to be the first treatise on fruits, that this country has 

 produced ; although long before that period, the cultivation of 

 them had been attended to, not only by the monks, but also 

 by the Druids. About this time. Cardinal Pole introduced 

 the fig ; and the orange and pomegranate were also cultivated 

 at Beddington. During the reigns of Elizabeth and Charles 

 the First, fi-uits were much attended to. Charles the Second 

 planted fruit-trees in his gardens at Hampton Court, Carlton, 

 and in Marlborough gardens ; and Waller, the poet, in allud- 

 ing to the two latter gardens, describes the mall in St. James' 

 Park, as — 



" All with a border of rich fruit-trees crown'd." 



Sir William Temple and Sir Henry Caple cultivated fruit- 

 trees, both as standards, and trained on w^alls ; Switzer de- 

 scribes the trees of the former as being exquisitely well trained 

 and nailed ; and the latter as having the choicest collection of 

 fruits in England, as well as being the most skilful and indus- 

 trious cultivator. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 



