GARDEN LITERATURE. 



101 



imperative and primitive of all desires, viz. those for food and 

 medicine, were doubtless those that prompted the earliest 

 experiments in gardening. Our first parents are said to have 

 lived in the first garden, and no doubt one situated in a more 

 genial clime than ours ; but of one thing we may rest assured, 

 viz. that in all ages and in all countries gardens have existed 

 side by side with the earliest evidences of refinement and of 

 civilisation. 



So far as our own land is concerned, we find constant 

 references to Kale-yards, Garths, Herbaries, Orchards, and 

 Cherry-yards in old records, in chronicles, chartularies, and 

 leases, wherever such records have been preserved. There is 

 ample proof of the existence of gardens in England from very 

 early times, but its literature is very scanty until we reach the 

 middle of the fifteenth century and the printing press appeared ; 

 then Bibles and herbals come in a continual stream. 



As a matter of course agriculture and horticulture had really 

 existed as an unknown quantity in England at least from the 

 date of the Roman invasion, during and after which time pur 

 native fruits and vegetables were augmented by better kinds 

 from Southern Europe and even from Western Asia. Again, 

 there were Orchards and Cherry-yards, in feudal times, outside 

 the castle walls, and herbaries inside for choice herbs and fruits 

 and vegetables and flowers ; and after the Conquest, the Norman- 

 French, who were used to such luxuries at home, would naturally 

 wish to augment the supplies they found then existent in 

 England. 



In Domesday Book (p. 127) not only are private houses with 

 their gardens recorded, but at Fulham, in Middlesex, still a 

 market-garden centre, eight cotarii and their gardens are 

 enumerated. The Crusaders are also credited with adding 

 materially to our garden stores by collecting and bringing home 

 useful and beautiful plants they had met with on their return 

 from the Holy Land. 



In the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189) the gardens of the 

 citizens of London are described by Fitzstevens as being large 

 and beautiful and fertile " to a degree." 



From the introduction of Christianity up to the Reformation 

 the best gardeners were those who lived quietly and peaceably in 

 the monasteries and other great religious houses, as at Ely, 



