46 



HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES. fART I. 



garden at Lambeth," Gibson observes, " has many curiosities 

 in it, and perhaps the finest striped holly hedge in England. 

 He has many myrtles, not the greatest, but cut in the most 

 fanciful shapes that are anywhere to be seen. He has a walk 

 arched over with trellis work, and covered with vines, which, 

 with others running on most of his walls, without prejudice to 

 his lower trees, yield him a deal of wine." 



The commercial gardeners at this time (1591) are thus enu- 

 merated by Gibson : — London and Wise had the only extensive 

 nursery ; Versprit excelled in hollies and " greens." Ricketts 

 and Pearson were small cultivators for sale. The latter had 

 " abundance of cypresses, which, at 3 ft. high, he sold for ^d. 

 apiece ; and, being moderate in his prices, and very honest in his 

 • dealings, he got much chapmanry." ' Darby, at Hoxton, is said 

 " to be master of several curious greens that other sale gardens 

 want." Darby is said to have raised many striped hollies by in- 

 oculation ; and Captain Foster (who appears also to have sold or 

 exchanged his garden productions) to have propagated the same 

 plants by grafting. Darby also kept a book of dried specimens 

 af plants, to show to his customers. Clements, at Mile End, 

 had many curious " greens ," and, the year that Gibson visited 

 him (1691), made " white muscadine, and white Frontignac 

 wine," better than any he (Gibson) had elsewhere tasted. It is 

 worthy of remark, that all these " sale gardeners " had green- 

 houses, and that they piqued themselves principally upon their 

 plants in pots and on their florists' flowers. It is singular that 

 Gibson does not speak of the Bishop of London's garden, 

 though it must have been in its state of greatest perfection at the 

 time he wrote ; and also that he barely mentions the nursery of 

 Messrs. London and Wise, which, Evelyn informs us, in the 

 preface to his translation of Quintinye's Complete Gardener, 

 published in 1701, "far surpassed all the others in England 

 put together." 



The Brompton Park Nursery may, indeed, be considered as 

 the first establishment of the kind which became celebrated. It 

 was founded by Messrs. Cooke, Lucre, London, and Field, in 

 1681. Lucre, or Lukar, was gardener to the Queen Dowager 

 at Somerset House ; Field was gardener to the Earl of Bedford, 

 ■at Bedford House in the Strand ; Moses Cooke was gardener to 

 r,he Earl of Essex, at Cashiobury, and author of a work entitled 

 The Manlier of raising Forest Trees, &c., 4to, 16Y6. George 

 Liondon was gardener to Bishop Compton, and afterwards 

 chief gardener first to William and Mary, and afterwards to 

 Queen Anne. Lukar died in 1686 : Cooke and Co. succeeded. 

 Cooke retired in 1689, when Henry Wise, who had been an 

 apprentice to Rose, the royal gardener, as London had also 

 been, became the sole proprietor. In 1693-45 he entered 



