July 8.] THE COTTAGE GAKDENER. 20T 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
JULY 3—9, 1851. 
Weather near London in 1850. 
Sun 
Sun 
Moon 
Moon’s 
Clock 
Day of 
Year. 
D D 
Barometer. Thermo. 
Wind. Rain in In. 
! Rises. 
Sets. 
R. & S. 
Age. 
bef. Sun. 
3 Th 
Dog Days begin. 
29.745 — 29.6fi7i 73—58 
W. 0.01 
1 50 a. 3 
18 a. 7 
n 
n 
4 
3 
46 
184 
4 F 
Cambridge Term ends. 
I 29.702 — 29.697 67—43 
W. — 
51 
17 
11 
36 
8 
3 
5 7 
185 
5 S 
Oxford Term ends. 
29.973 — 29.772 76—45 
W. — 
51 
17 
11 
59 
3 
4 
8 
186 | 
6 Son 
3 Sunday after Trin. Old Mid. Day. 
30.097 — 30.078! 79—48 
s.w.l — 
52 
16 
morn. 
7 
4 
18 
187 1 
7 M 
Calamint flowers. 
30.065 — 29.995, 86—52 
S. I — 
53 
16 
0 
22 
8 
4 
23 
188 
8 To 
Wood-betony flowers. 
30.129 — 30.038 88—50 
s.w. — 
54 
15 * 
0 
46 
9 
4 
38 
189 
9 W 
Cranberries ripe. 
30.276 — 30.223 84—49 
N.W. — 
55 
14 
1 
12 
10 
4 
47 
190 
I Botany, in its most comprehensive acceptation, that is, including the 
physiology as well as the classification of plants, is a chief part of the 
only foundation upon which an enlightened practice of gardening can he 
raised. Consei|uently, previous to the reign uf Elizabeth (1558— 1602 .), 
horticulture, in England, wa 3 considered as little more than a mechanical 
art; for botany itself, before that period, was almost unknown as a 
science. It was not, however, in England alone, that the study and cul¬ 
tivation of plants then became more popular, there were many tributary 
streams to this branch of the river of science ; our ancestors were only 
followers of an example that was set by many continental powers, and 
which seems to have risen from a desire for the improvement of a know¬ 
ledge of plants, and their culture, which pervaded Europe simultaneously 
at this period. Padua took the lead by establishing a public Botanic 
Garden, whilst under the Venetians, in 153:1. Lucas Ghinus, at Bologna, 
who was the first public professor of botany in Europe, was a strenuous 
advocate of such institutions. By his influence a similar garden was 
established at Bologna, in 1517, where Dr. Turner, our earliest writer on 
botany, first imbibed much of that knowledge, which rendered him 
j eminent in this country. Among the earliest private gardens of the same 
kind, was that of Enricus Cordus, at Bremen, who died in 1538 ; of Mor- 
decius, at Cassel, who flourished about the same time ; and Gcsner con- 
j structed the first Botanic Garden in Switzerland, at Zurich, in 1560 . 
Nor was England backward in joining this simultaneous effort to in¬ 
crease the genuine knowledge of plants, for John Gerarde founded 
here, in 1567 , the first regular establishment for their scientific cultiva¬ 
tion. His Physic Garden was in Holborn, then a village without-side the 
city walls, and celebrated for more than one large mansion, with accom¬ 
panying horticultural establishments. Here were his noble master’s gar¬ 
dens, for Lord Burleigh’s grounds covered some fourteen acres of ground 
where Hatton Garden stands, and is now commemorative only in name. 
0, his garden, Gerarde published a catalogue, and one Copy alone sur¬ 
vives in the British Museum, to inform us what were the 1039 species 
| which Lobel attests to have seen flourishing there. It is a little quarto 
pamphlet of eighteen pages, and is so unique, that it deserves to be more 
particularized. The title page is inscribed “ Catalogue arborum, fru- 
ticum, ac pluntarum turn indigenu-rum, quam exotinarum in horto 
Johannis Gerardi, dels et chirurgi Lnndinen&is nascentium. Londini. 
Ex ojficina Rnberti Robinson. 1596 .” (Catalogue of trees, fruits, and 
plants, as well native as exotic, growing in the garden of John Gerard, 
citizen and surgeon of London.) It is dedicated to his master and 
matron, Lord Burleigh, and he speaks of the plants as being cultivated 
jv himself for some years “ in my suburban little garden.” Nor was 
this the only effort made by Gerarde, practically to improve the botany 
and gardening of his time, for he prompted his master, then Elizabeth’s 
Prime Minister, to Urge the University of Cambridge to establish there a 
Botanic Garden, nor does it throw a suspicion across Gerarde’s motives, 
that he sought to be connected with the establishment. He longed to 
have more powerful means of promoting the science he loved, and justly 
conscious, that no man then in England was more competent to super¬ 
intend their effectual employment, he prepared the following document, 
which, thus endorsed, we find among the Burleigh Papers. 
“John Gerarde, a letter of his own drawing for your lordship to sign 
for the University of Cambridge for planting Gardens.” 
“ After my most hearty commendations, &c., as it hath been always 
mine especial care (neither doubt I but it is yours also) to procure by all 
means possible, the flourishing state of your University in religion and 
liberal sciences so that at this present (to my great comfort) I see it not 
inferior herein to any University in Europe or any other part of the 
world were it not that many famous Universities (as Padua, Mont¬ 
pellier, that of Vienna and others) had prevented or rather provoked us 
by their good example in purchasing of public gardens and looking out 
men of good experience to dress and keep the same. Whereby that 
noble science of physic is made absolute as having recovered the faculty 
of simpling, a principal and material part thereof. Wherefore, not 
doubting of your readiness in imitating or emulating the best in so 
laudable actions I thought it good to move you herein to commend 
this bearer John GrKAsnE a servant of mine unto you ; who by reason 
of his travails into far countries, his great practice, and long experience, 
is thoroughly acquainted with the general and special differences, names, 
properties, and privy marks of thousands of plants and trees. So that il 
you intend a work of emolument to yourselves and all young students, I 
shall be glad to have nominated and furnished you with so expert an 
Hcrbarist, and yourselves, I trust, will think well of the motion and the 
man. Thus desiring God to prosper all your godly studies and painful 
endeavours I bid you heartily farewell. ( Lunsdoume HISS., 107 . Pint. 
lxxv. E. fol. 92.) 
Gerarde failed in his embassage, and until very recently Cambridge re¬ 
mained without a Botanic Garden, hut he was not disheartened, though 
he had hoped, probably, to make that garden assistant to the preparation 
of his “ Herbal,” which was in progress when he published his Cata¬ 
logue, for he styles this “the forerunner of my larger work.” This 
j “ larger work,” and it well merits such a designation, being a huge folio, 
I was published in 1597 , and bears this title :— 
The Herbitl or general history of Plants, gathered by John Gerarde 
of London, master in chirurgerie. 
It is dedicated to “his singular good lord and master,” Lord Bur¬ 
leigh, who was a great eneourager of gardening, and to whose plant 
stoves, Gerarde thus alludes :—“ Gardens, especially such as your honour 
hath, do singularly delight, when in them a man doth behold a flourishing 
show of summer beauties in the midst of winter’s force, and a goodly 
spring of flowers when abroad a leaf is not to be seen.” Speaking of him¬ 
self, lie says :—“ Myself one of your servants, and under your lordship I 
have served, and that way employed my principal study, and almost all 
my time now by the space of twenty years. To the large and singular 
! furniture of this noble island I have added from foreign parts all the 
variety of herbs and flowers that I might any way obtain. I have laboured 
with the soil to make it fit for plants, and with the plants to make them 
delight in the soil, that so they might live and prosper under our climate 
as in their native and proper country; what my success hath heen and 
what my furniture is, I leave to the report of them that have seen your 
lordship’s gardens, and the little plot of my special care and husbandry.” 
That “ little plot,” we have seen, was in Holborn. 
Prefixed to this vast volume, are many laudatory epistles, but not one 
more than it deserves for it embraces not only all the information pub¬ 
lished by other botanists, but with much added that was original, and, 
being in plain English, aided in no small degree to promote and render 
popular a diffusion of the taste for Botany. Among the laudatory epistles 
are one from Dr. Lancelot Brown, the Queen’s Physician, Matthias de 
Lobel, the ancient botanist and Gerarde’s ancient friend, and many others. 
Among them is one from the Rev. Thomas Newton, clergyman of Ilford, 
Cheshire, who says, after lauding his botanical knowledge— 
“ Gerarde, I congratulate you and myself; Namptwieh I congratulate, 
and all Britain, that thou and I were born of Cheshire parents, though 
thou wast born under a happier star.” 
“Thomas Thorncy, master in Chirurgery,” also sings to him, among 
other praises, in good English verse— 
“ Herein (as in a glass) we see 
How thou thy mind hast bent, 
Thy body toiled, thy time bestowed, 
And many a pound hath spent. 
In sleepless nights, in restless days, 
In places far and near, 
In searching this, in trying that, 
In countries here and there. 
Prefering still the common good, 
Neglecting still thine own, 
And art content that we shall reap 
The seed which thou hast sown.” 
George Baker, “one of Her Majesty’s chief surveyors in ordinary,” 
says—“ If I may speak without partiality of the author of this book, for 
his great pains, his no less expenses in travelling far and near was never 
contented with the knowledge of those simples which grow in these parts, 
but upon his proper cost and changes hath had out of all parts of the 
world all the rare simples which by any means he could attain unto, not 
only to have them brought, but hath procured by his excellent knowledge 
to have them growing in his garden. I do not think, for the knowledge 
of plants, that he is inferior to any; for I did once see him tried with one 
of the best strangers that ever came into England, and was accounted in 
Paris the only man, being recommended to me by that famous man M. 
Ambrose Parti, and he being here, was desirous to go abroad with some 
of our herbarists, for the which I was the mean to bring them together, 
and one whole day we spent therein, searching the most rare simples, 
but when it came to the trial, my Frenchman did not know one to his 
four.” 
In his own preface, dated “ From my house in Holborn within the 
! suburbs of London, this first of December, 1597,” Gerarde says, “ I have | 
here set down not only the names of sundry plants, but also their natures, 
their proportions and properties, their affects and effects, their increase I 
and decrease, their flourishing and fading, their distinct varieties and 
several qualities, as well as those which our own country yicldeth, as of | 
others which I have fetched further, as drawn out by perusing divers 1 
Herbals, wherein none of my countrymen have taken any pains, since ! 
that excellent work of Master Doctor Turner; after which time Master 
Lyte, a worshipful gentleman, translated Dodomeus out of French into 
i English, and since that Doctor Priest, one of our London College, hath 
j (as I heard) translated the last edition of Dodomeus, which meant to 
publish the same, but being prevented by death, his translation likewise 
perished.” 
Attempts were made to throw discredit upon this statement, and to 
attach to Gerarde the ignominy not only of having appropriated to his own 
use the translation of Dr. Priest, but. thus to have repudiated the obliga¬ 
tion by this deliberate falsehood. We believe the charge to be unfounded, 
and shall have occasion to state the reasons of our belief when giving a 
memoir of the editor of his Herbal. That editor gives us the only other 
fragment of Gerarde’s biography in this uncertain sentence—“ he lived 
some ten years after the publishing of this work, and died about the 
year 1607 .” 
Meteorology op the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations 
during the last twenty-four years, the average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures of these days are 75.5° and 52.4° respectively. The greatest 
heat, 95°, occurred on the Sth in 1846, and the lowest cold, 40°, on the 
9 th in 1839. During the period 104 days were tine, and on 61 rain fell. 
Jfo. CXLIY., Yqj.. VI 
