240 
NATURAL HISIOEY 
despised for tlieir sordid parsimony, and looked upon as 
regardless of the welfare of tlieir dependents. Potatoes 
have prevailed in this little district, by means of premiums, 
within these twenty years only ; and are much esteemed 
here now by the poor, who would scarce have ventured to 
taste them in the last reign. 
Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage, 
because they call the month of February sproutcale ; ^ but 
long after their days, the cultivation of gardens was little 
attended to. The religious, being men of leisure, and keep- 
ing up a constant correspondence with Italy, were the first 
people among us that had gardens and fruit-trees in any 
perfection within the walls of their abbeys and priories.^ 
The barons neglected every pursuit that did not lead to war 
or tend to the pleasure of the chase. 
It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horticul- 
ture themselves that the knowledge of gardening made such 
hasty advances. Lord Cobham, Lord Ila, and Mr. Waller 
of Beaconsfield, were some of the first people of rank that 
promoted the elegant science of ornamenting, without de- 
spising, the superintendence of the kitchen quarters and 
fruit walls. 
A remark made by the excellent Mr. Ray, in his Tour of 
Europe, at once surprises us, and corroborates what has 
been advanced above ; for we find him observing, so late as 
his days, that the Italians use several herbs for sallets, 
which are not yet or have not been but lately used in Eng- 
land, viz. selleri (celery), which is nothing else but the 
sweet smallage ; the young shoots whereof, with a little of 
the head of the root cut ofi", they eat raw with oil and 
^ The Saxon names of many other months were equally significant ; 
e.g. March, stormy month; May, Thrimilchi, the cows then being 
milked three times a day ; June, dig and weed month ; September, bar- 
ley month, &c. — Ed. 
2 " In monasteries, the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, however 
dimly. In them, men of business were formed for the state : the art 
of writing was cultivated by the monks ; they were the only proficients 
in mechanics, gardening, and architecture." See Dalrymple's " Annals 
of Scotland."— G. W. 
