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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA 
■'dot" plants at the corners, trellises and arbors and a 
maze was usually included. The bee-hives were under 
the gardener's charge. Among the plants one would 
have found would have been roses, carnations and gillo- 
flowers, the red paeony, marigold and a goodly array 
of scented plants. Poultry were allowed to wander in 
the vegetable compartments and the peacock had already 
been introduced from India. Hill wrote the "Profitable 
Art of Gardening" in 1574 and the transplanting of car- 
rots and onions was then first recognized. By such small 
matters is progress made. 
^: ^ :{; ^ 
A little book on "How to Graft," published by Leonard 
Mascall about that time, contains full and excellent ad- 
vice on that scientific operation, though the drawings in 
his book are rather crude. What the history of the art 
of grafting is I do not know, but it was known as far 
back as Pliny. Grafting was introduced to Scotland at 
the instigation of James I (1566-1625). He passed 
Acts for the compulsory planting of woods, hedges and 
coverts of Broom. He also encouraged the Scottish 
nobles to practise fruit-tree grafting. At the same 
period, namely about 1430, extensive parks had already 
been enclosed in England, and were tenanted by deer. 
Rabbit warrens were also instituted. 
* * * * 
The earliest English botanic garden was formed by 
Dr. William Turner. Turner was born at Maspeth, and 
seems to have been something of an ecclesiastic as well 
as a physician. He entertained certain opinions repug- 
nant to King Henry \Tn and found it convenient to 
retire to the continent, where he became acquainted with 
Conrad Gesner, the botanist, after whom Gesneria is 
named, at Zurich. Returning to England after the death 
of Henry VHI, the Protector Somerset secured his 
services as physician, and Turner seems to have taken 
the opportunity to form a garden at Sion, opposite Kew 
Gardens, London. Afterwards he retired to Wells and 
formed a garden of his own there. Turner was a prolific 
writer and composed several books on botanical subjects, 
the "'Herball," which came out in two parts, the one in 
London, 1562; the other at Cologne, 1562, the work as 
a whole in 1568, being that by which he is best known. 
The earlier writers were such men as these, men who 
were both botanists and flower growers. Such a one 
was Parkinson who published his big bulky flori-cultural 
work in 1629. It is referred to many times in our own 
present day because of its full, quaint descriptions of the 
varieties of flowering plants then grown. For instance 
he names 160 varieties of Tulips and gives illustrations 
of many of them ; 30 distinct kinds of Roses, many Nar- 
cissi, Carnations or Gillyflowers, and the other plants of 
his day. He maintained an active correspondence with 
others who were interested in flowers on the Continent 
and who sent to his garden in London, whatever things 
of value they had or found. It is interesting to us to 
note that Parkinson furnishes the earliest reference to 
the ordinary garden syringe. He died in London in 1650 
in his 83rd year. In connection with this note on the 
svringe it may be observed that the ordinary watering 
pot in anything like its present day form was not in- 
vented or brought into use until between 1620 and 1630. 
There is scarcely anything so small that has not had "a 
beginning" and been improved on. And there is plenty 
of room for ingenious minds to he at work today. Think 
of the long story of the evolution of our greenhouse 
heating systems, and of greenhouses. 
:1c :,: :^ :t; 
America had by this time been visited and had yielded 
of her plant [iroducts. In 1588 Sir Walter Raleigh's 
naturalist servant, Thos. Herriot, wrote an interesting 
account of Virginia. Maize, tobacco and the potato most 
largely excited his curiosity. "Openawk," the native 
name of jiotato, he says, "is a kind of roots of round 
form, some of the bigness of walnuts, some far greater, 
which are found in moist and marsh ground, growing 
many together one by another in ropes, as though they 
were fastened with a string. Being boiled or sodden, 
they are very good meat." The potato was already 
known on the Continent, and Clusius mentions having 
acquired the plant in 1588. Tobacco is said to have been 
cultivated in Spain about 1540. 
Another of those who did much in the way of collect- 
ing wild [jlants that were of sufticient merit to find a 
place in gardens, was John Tradescant. He was a Dutch- 
man and became gardener at the palace of Charles I of 
England. His son came to America. Tradescant him- 
self travelled upon the continent and had been as far 
east as Russia, and was with the fleet against Algeria 
nine years before assuming the duties of Royal gardener. 
His journeyings were the means of his bringing home 
numbers of plants both from Barbary and the Mediter- 
ranean littoral. At Lambeth, London, he collected the 
first considerable array of natural objects that had been 
got together in England, and his museum, or Tradescant's 
Ark. as it came to be called, was the rendezvous of the 
fashionable elements of society. His son, as already 
mentioned, took a voyage to the new colony of \'irginia 
in North America so-called in remembrance of the Vir- 
gin Queen, Elizabeth, and brought back many plants — 
including ferns, spiderworts and the deciduous cypress 
(Taxodivin). Tradescant's Ark was eventually willed 
to ( )xford L'^niversity and is now known as the Ash- 
molean .Museum. ***:.: 
During the earlier decades of Elizabeth's reign the 
English garden was undergoing transformation. The 
Elizabethan garden had borrowed from Ital\- and France 
the parterre and alleys and labyrinths ( something like a 
maze) in a modified form, just as fountains and statu- 
arial adornments had been borrowed some years earlier. 
The garden of that period was said to have been "a 
happy fusion of the Tudor garden with the styles of 
Italy and France." It was, and remained for the next 
century, a purely formal garden, usually walled or hedged 
in, with straight walks and paths, geometrical beds, 
abundance of clipped hedges and arbors, with frequently 
a maze or a canal as an additional feature. 
^ ^: * :?: 
The world was still being gradually explored. The 
Spanish and Portuguese were early at work, and after 
Magellan had circumnavigated the globe, and Sir Francis 
Drake had repeated the achievement in 1580, all the 
great land divisions of the globe were at least known on 
the outside (around their coast-lines), excepting the 
Island Continent of the southern hemisphere (.Australia). 
Merchant adventurers, soldiers and government emis- 
saries (like Sir Walter Raleigh), brought or sent home 
numerous plants, which gradually added to the wealth 
and the interest of British gardens. The potato, the tea, 
and the tobacco plant came now, though "the noble 
tuber" was left unused as a food product for nigh 150 
years. * =;, * * 
In the next edition of the Chronicle we may, if the 
Editor is willing, continue with some other outstanding 
points in the story of gardening and floriculture. It is 
highly entertaining. "This should lead up from these 
earlier times, to the gardening of our own land. Mean- 
while "The Outlooker" wishes his readers a happy time 
this Christn:as and a good new \ear. 
