242 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



According to an old song of the time of Henry VI., Peas cods 

 were sold in the streets of London. It runs as follows : — 



Then into London I dyde me hye : 

 Of all the land it beareth the pryse. 

 Gode Peas cods one began to cry. 



It is also worthy of note that Peascod Street in Windsor is so 

 called because of the Peas cods which were grown and sold there. 

 Thomas Tusser, in 1557, in the time of Queen Mary, in his 

 " A Hundred Good Points of Husbandrie " writes : — 



Good Gardener mine, 

 Make gardens fine ; 

 Set Garden Peas 

 And Beans if ye please. 



And in his directions for January : — 



Dig garden now may ye at ease, 

 Set as a daintie the Rounceval Peas. 



And in the following month he advises the farmer : — 



Go plow in the stubble for now is the season 

 For sowing of Fitches of Beans & of Peason ; 

 Sowe Rounceval timely & all that be grey, 

 But sowe not the White till St. Greogerie's Day. 



Sowe Peason & Beans in the wane of the Moon — 

 Who soweth them sooner he soweth too soone — 

 That they with the planet may rest and rise, 

 And flourish with bearing most plentiful wise. 



Both Peason & Beans sowe afore ye do plowe, 

 The sooner ye harrow the better for you ; 

 White Peason so good for the purse & the pot, 

 Let them be well used else well ye do not. 



Sticke plentie of Bowes among Rounceval Peas 

 To clamber thereon & to branch at their ease, 

 So doing more tender & greater they wex, 

 If Peacock & Turkey leave jobbing their beks. 



Green Peas appear to have been unknown to our Saxon ancestors, 

 and in fact until after the Norman Conquest. Fosbrooke, in his 

 " British Monasticum," says, amongst other vegetables, Green 

 Pease were provided against midsummer for the nunnery at 

 Barking in Essex. Green Peas became a popular delicacy in 

 England soon after the restoration of Charles II., and, strange 

 enough, I find in the year 1769 as much as a guinea a pottle, not 



