GARDEN LITERATURE. 



105 



Every tyme of the year and of the mone 



And how the crafte shall be done 



Y n what maner he schall delve and sette 



Both Y" drowth and Y" (the) wette 



How he schall hys sedys sowe 



Of every moneth he must knowe 



Both of wortys and of leke 



Ownyns and of garleke 



Percely, clary, and eke sage 



And all other herbage. 



At the conclusion, under " Saferowne," the last four lines are 

 as follows : — 



W 4 a dybble pu schalt ham sette 



That pe dybble before be blunt and grete 



Three ynches depe they most sette be 



And thus sayde Mayster Jon Gardener to me. 



The directions throughout are clear and reasonable, and set 

 forth in a rude rhyme ; and the last line of all, viz. : — 



And thus sayde Mayster Jon Gardener to me, 



may suggest that the writer was a scribe merely, and not the actual 

 author. The headlines or cross-titles to the parts or divisions of 

 the piece, and indicating the contents, are in a later hand, such 

 as "The Feate of Gardening," "Of Settyng and Rerying of 

 Treys," " Of Graffyng," in which place he says of Pears, you 

 are to " graffe hym apon a Hawthorn." There are chapters on the 

 ' ' cuttyng and settyng of Vynys," "of settyng and sowyng of 

 Sedys and Wurtys," " of Perselye and other maner Herbys, and 

 of the kynde of Saferowne." The probable date of this MS. is 

 1440-1450, and it may be taken not only as our best early 

 English (i.e. written in English) work on gardening, but also as 

 the prototype and precursor of such rhyming works as Tusser's 

 " Husbandry," and it was also a forerunner of the early calendars 

 on gardening. This MS. has been transcribed in full and anno- 

 tated, by the Hon. Miss Amherst (to whom we are all indebted 

 for her valuable "History of Gardening in England "), and it 

 may be found in " Archelogia," Vol. 54 (Part I.), pp. 157-172. 

 There is a small quarto treatise of two pages only on gardening 

 of about this date (1450) by Nicholas Bollar, or Bollardo, in the 

 British Museum (B.M. Sloane MS. No. 7). Bollar is described 

 by Johnson as an Oxonian of skill, and it is probable that he 



