REFERENCE BOOKS ON ENGLISH GARDENING LITERATURE. HQ 



nursery gardeners of his time who united a love of science with 

 the practice of his art. He was a personal friend of Bradley, in 

 whose works many of his experiments on sexuality in plants — 

 then a new study — are first published. A large nurseryman 

 and florist, he cultivated one of the last vineyards at Hoxton 

 in 1722. 



A flower sermon, for which he left funds, is delivered in St. 

 Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, on^Whit Tuesday every year. 



Fairchild is believed to have been the raiser of the first 

 known hybrid plant ever raised in English gardens, viz., " Fair- 

 child's Mule Pink," which was presumably a cross between some 

 form of Pink or Carnation and the Sweet William or Dianthus 

 barbatus. 



1714. John Lawrence studied at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and 

 was Kector of Yelvertoft, in Northamptonshire, in 1703. 



His book, "The Clergyman's Kecreation " (1714), went 

 through several editions and was a practical and valuable book. 

 He wrote of his own experience, and his works had much 

 influence at the time they appeared, and Lawrence may stand as 

 an example of the good teaching that has emanated since his 

 time from many a rectory or vicarage garden. 



1718. Steven Switzer was a native of Hampshire, born about 

 1GG5, and he died, aged about 80, in 1745. He was employed by 

 the great firm of London and Wise, and in 1706 he assisted them 

 in laying out the grounds at Blenheim. He was also kitchen 

 gardener at St. James's Palace under Mr. Lowder, afterwards 

 gardener to the Earl of Orrery in 1724. He was also a gardener 

 and nurseryman on his own account, and evidently had many 

 ups and downs in his life, at one time enjoying the society of 

 " the best men and the best books," and again reduced to what 

 he calls " the meanest labours of the scythe, spade, and wheel- 

 barrow." 



His great work is the " Iconographia Rustica," in three vols., 

 published in 1718, though the first volume had appeared three 

 years previously (1715) under the title of "The Nobleman, 

 Gentleman, and Gardener's Recreation." He wrote also " The 

 Practical Kitchen Gardener" (1727) and "The Practical Fruit 

 Gardener " (1724-31), and several other works ; but Switzer and 

 his works, good though they are, seem to have been over- 

 shadowed by those of his old employers, London and Wise, and by 



