i6o A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
The progress, during the middle part of this period, was 
in the culture of economic plants, and not in garden design, 
or in the flower-garden. Many of the old superstitions about 
plants were exposed. Austen fills several pages in contradict¬ 
ing old-fashioned notions—" Errors discovered,’’ he calls it— 
such things as writing an inscription on a peach-stone or almond, 
and planting it, expecting the same writing to appear in the 
ripe fruit of the tree; or : "To have all stone fruit taste as yee 
shall think good, lay the stones to soak in such liquor as yee 
would have them taste of or again : " To have red apples, put 
the grafts into Pikes’ blood.” He thus sums up such-like 
recipes : " These things cannot be.” " Errors in practice ” 
he seeks to correct also, and shows much good sense in his 
remarks on planting or moving fruit-trees : " Many remove 
their trees in Winter or neere the Spring, whereas they ought 
to remove them in September or thereabouts.” Another error 
was " planting trees too neere together ; I account io or 12 
yards a competant distance for Apple-trees or Pear-trees, for 
Cherry or Plum 7 or 8.” Many plant "too old trees in orchards, 
and neglect to plant their trees in as good or better soyle, then 
that from which they are removed.” He points out some of 
the writings in which such errors were to be found. “The 
Countryman s Recreation , 1640, is full of these fancies,” also 
in the works of " Didymus ” or Thomas Hill, and the Country 
Farm, by Gabriel Plat. The necessity of refuting such errors 
shows how primitive many gardeners still must have been in 
their ideas. A small work on fruit-trees by Francis Drope in 
1672 is free from absurdities ; but Adam Speed’s book, a few 
years later than Austen’s, is full of errors as apparently ludicrous 
as those " discovered ” by Austen, so gradual is the passage 
" from darkness to dawn.” Only two of his solemn assertions 
need be quoted as specimens : " To make white lilies become 
red, fill a hole in a lily root with any red colour,” and " the 
roots of roses set among broom will bring forth yellow Roses.” 
He suggests that sow thistles should be planted, as " they 
will maintain ” " calves, lambs, pigs... and millions of rabbits,” 
and Jerusalem artichokes, because they would " feed poultry 
and swine.” Some of his remarks, however, are more sensible ; 
for instance, he observes of potatoes, " they will make very 
