HYDE PARK 
39 
the dullest operations of farming and gardening Into 
fields for enterprise and treasuries of possible discoveries, 
it is humiliating to find the water in Hyde Park being 
used for like experiments as long ago as 1691-92. 
Stephen Switzer, a gardener, who would have been de¬ 
scribed by his contemporaries as a “ lover of Ingenuities,” 
Dolphin Fountain in Hyde Park 
was fond of Indulging in speculations, and studied the 
effect of water on plants. He quotes a series of ex¬ 
periments made by Dr. Woodward on growing plants 
entirely in water, or with certain mixtures. For fifty-two 
days during the summer of 1692 he carefully watched 
some plants of spearmint, which were all “ the most 
kindly, fresh, sprightly Shoots I could chuse,” and were 
set in water previously weighed. For this trial he selected 
“ Hyde Park Conduit water ”—one pure, another had an 
