March 25. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
391 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
W MARCH 25—31, 1852. 
L) | J-) 
Weather near London in 1851. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun Moon 
Sets. R.&S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day 0 
Year 
Barometer. 
Thermo. 
Wind. 
Rain in In. 
25 Th Lady Day. 
29.732 — 29.452 
51—45 
S.W. 
14 
53 5 
19 a. 6 11 19 
5 
6 
0 
85 
26 F Black-cap heard. 
29.495 — 29.391 
54—35 
s.w. 
17 
50 
21 morn. 
6 
5 
42 
86 
27 S Ducklings hatched. 
29.540 — 29.516 
56—44 
S.W. 
02 
48 
23 I 0 26 
7 
5 
23 
87 
28 Son 
29.792 — 29.697 
56—40 
w. 
— 
46 
25 1 29 
3 
5 
5 
88 
29 M Double Hyacinth flowers. 
29.562 — 29.440 
56—35 
w. 
33 
44 
26 2 28 
9 
4 
46 
89 
30 To Wood Sorrel flowers. 
29.750—29.558 
54—36 
N.W. 
06 
41 
28 | 3 18 
10 
4 
28 
90 
31'W 
30.124 — 29.079 
54—37 
N.W. 
— 
39 
29 4 1 
11 
4 
9 
91 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-five years, the average highest and lowest tempera¬ 
tures of these days are 53.2° and 34.1° respectively. The greatest heat, 75°, occurred on the 2/thin 1830 ; and the lowest cold, 14° on the 25th 
in 1850. During the period 113 days were fine, and on 62 rain fell. 
We cannot call to remembrance any notice of a nursery¬ 
man being mentioned before the seventeenth century was 
well advanced; and if this tradesman did not exist pre¬ 
viously to that date, we have one very sufficient reason 
assigned for the slow progress of gardening before the 
arrival of that time. If the knowledge of improved varieties, 
or of new species of plants, was to be dependent upon 
private acquaintances and interchanges, the progress of that 
knowledge would be slow indeed; and the mind suggests 
j more fluently than can the pen what must have been the 
I inconvenience and consequences, by reflecting what they 
; would be now, even in the present state of our improved 
gardening, if by the proclamation of some arbitrary Pre- 
| sident, the whole race of florists, seedsmen, and nursery- 
j men was suppressed. It is not improbable that such men 
! as Gerarde, Tradescant, and Parkinson, may have sold the 
: spare produce of their gardens, but Ralph Austen, whom 
we mentioned a few weeks since, is about the earliest we 
have found named as a regular nurseryman, and that the 
trade was not long or widely established, seems intimated 
by the contemporary observation, that “ his labours and ex¬ 
periments had done more good for Oxford, and thence for 
England, than was done by many gaudy gallants.” At all 
events, the example had a most beneficial influence, and as 
the Universities were always rivals, foremost in the effort to 
establish a commercial nursery were the good lieges of Cam¬ 
bridge. Austen established his nursery about 1052, and in 
1077 we find this work from the pen of Dr. John Beale :— 
! Nurseries, Orchards, Profitable Gardens, and Vineyards en- 
| couraged, more particularly for the benefit of Cambridge, and 
the champaine countries, and northern parts of England. In 
this the doctor says:—“One objected, that if we had one 
skilful and diligent nurseryman, who had a complete 
nursery of all sorts of good trees, and of the best vines that 
agree best with this climate, and mulberry-trees, and whole¬ 
some trees for the avenues of cities, towns, and fair man- 
: sions, that one such nursery within ten or fifteen miles in 
! all the vales of these three United Kingdoms, would make 
all these plantations spread apace, and amount to the value 
of millions yearly. I answered that it was now doing.” 
That nurserymen were not generally established is evident 
from the context, for he then proceeds to recommend gen¬ 
tlemen to allow their gardeners to raise plants for sale, so 
that even cottagers might have the best vines, “ who cannot 
send to Mr. Rose.” It appears that the gardener at Wilton 
House was permitted to do so; and that there were also 
“ goodly nurseries about Salisbury; ” and that “ his Ma¬ 
jesty’s gardener, Mr. Rose, was an obliging example, for his 
sale -of the best vines, and the fittest for our climate.” Yet 
there must have been many nursery gardens in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of London, for Parkinson, writing in 1629, says in 
his ParadisHs (page 571)—“ The Arch-Dukes Cherry is one 
of the fairest and best; scarce one of twenty of our nur¬ 
serymen do sell the right;” and Meager, in 1670, speaks 
of “ his very loving friend, Captain Gourde, dwelling at the 
great nursery between Spittle Fields and White-c.happel, a 
very eminent and ingenious nurseryman.” We may observe 
that this Captain Go uric was raiser of the Elrovge Nectarine, 
of which the name is merely his own name reversed. 
Next in chronological order, and pre-eminent in extent 
and excellence, was the Brampton Park Nursery ; concern¬ 
ing which we are indebted for the following particulars to 
one of its former proprietors. 
“ In the year 1631, four enterprising men, gardeners of 
the nobility, taking advantage of the new state of things, 
entered upon tins undertaking as a great mercantile specu¬ 
lation. For this purpose they took upwards of one hun¬ 
dred acres of land situate between Old Brompton and the 
Kensington Road, and there they conducted the new estab¬ 
lishment under the designation of ‘ Lukar, Field, Cooke, 
and London.' Lukar was gardener to the Queen Dowager 
at Somerset House in the Strand; Field held a similar 
situation with the Earl of Bedford, at Bedford House, also 
in the Strand; Cooke* was gardener to the Earl of Essex, 
at Casliiobury; and London, to Bishop Compton at Fulham. 
‘ One of their first undertakings,’ says Switzer, ‘was at the 
Right Honorable Lord Viscount Weymouth’s, at Longleat, 
in Wiltshire, where these four partners abode every one his 
month, and in the intervals attended tlicir own business: of 
which the new nursery before named was not the least.’ 
“ About the year 1686, the two senior partners died, and in 
1689 Cooke disposed of his share to Henry Wise. In 1690 
was formed that partnership under the name of ‘ London 
and Wise,’ which is so eminently associated with the garden¬ 
ing and garden architecture of that period. Both were men 
of high attainments in their profession; the practical ex¬ 
perience which London obtained, both at home and during 
his residence on the continent, qualified him to accomplish 
whatever he undertook. He was originally a pupil of Rose, 
gardener to Charles the Second at St. James’s, by whom he 
was sent to France for improvement: on his return he was 
appointed gardener to the Bishop of London, and subse¬ 
quently, as above mentioned, ‘he (with his associates) 
entered on that great undertaking of Brompton Park.’ At 
the revolution in 1668, he was made superintendent of all 
the Royal Gardens, at a salary of T200 a-year, and a Page 
of the Back Stairs to Queen Maiy, ‘ and it was particularly 
observed that lie assisted at the revolution in carrying the 
then Princess Anne to Nottingham from the fury of the 
Papists.’ Wise was also a man of considerable ability, and 
like London, was originally a pupil of Rose, the royal gar¬ 
dener. At the accession of Queen Anne, she committed 
the care of the Royal Gardens to Mr. Wise, and by him it 
was that Kensington Gardens were designed and planted, 
after the enclosure from Hyde Park. ‘ All the business of 
moment done for any of the nobility by Mr. Wise, was for 
his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, at Blenheim.—This 
stupendous work (begun and most part finished in three 
years’ time,) may be reckoned among the greatest of all 
these two gentlemen’s undertakings : Sir Richard Child’s, at 
Wanstead, in Essex, is the next, and in some respects the 
best of the two. This was begun in 1706, a design worthy 
of an English Baronet, and equal to the greatest French 
peer.’t 
“ During their occupation of the nursery, they were assi 
duous in promoting to the utmost the new direction which 
the science of gardening had assumed. Evelyn, whoso 
authority upon the subjects of which he treated is perhaps 
more to be relied upon than that of any other man of his 
period, when speaking of the efforts of these gentlemen, 
says : j—‘Of all that i have hitherto seen, either at home 
* This was Moses Cooke, the author of “The Manner of Raisin", 
Ordering, and Improving Fruit Trees, &e., &c.” London, 1679 , 4to. 
He was the son of a farmer in Lincolnshire, and brought up to the pro¬ 
fession of a gardener, in which capacity he served the Karl ot Essex ironi 
1660 to 1681. Evelyn in his “ Diary ” says, “ he was skilful in (he me¬ 
chanical parts of gardening, not ignorant of mathematics, and somewhat 
of an adept in astrology.” 
■)• Switzer’s Iconographia. + Treatise on Fruit Trees. 
No. CLXXXIL, Vol. Vtl. 
