July 24.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
240 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
JULY 24—30, 1851. 
1 
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. 
24 Th 
Swallow-tail Moth seen. 
29.025 — 29.9091 76—49 S. 
15 ! l 
13 a. 4 
59 a. 7 
0 31 
25 
6 
9 
205 
25 F 
St. James. Ds. Camb. b. 1797. 
29.813 — 29.628! 65—50 S. 
i° 
15 
53 
1 5 
26 
6 
11 
206 
26 S 
Wild Marjoram flowers. 
29.716 —29.066! 69—54 W. 
06 
16 
57 
1 49 
27 
6 
1 1 
207 
27 Sun 
6 Sunday after Trin. Swifts depart. 
29.307 — 29.729’ 62—62 W. 
26 
17 
55 
2 43 
28 
6 
11 
208 
28 M 
Everlasting Pea flowers. 
129.989 —29.9041 65—54 N. 
01 
19 
54 
sets. 
© 
6 
11 
209 
29 Tu 
Smaller Skipper Butterfly seen. 
,30.109 —30.066 1 72—52 N.E. 
_ 
20 
52 
8 a 4 1 
1 
6 
10 
210 
30 W 
Chamomile flowers. 
130.197 — 30.150 74—54 N.E. 
— i! 
22 
51 
9 11 
2 
6 
8 
211 
1 
An author giving us an enlarged and accurate view of the gardening ' 
of this country, did not appear until the reign of Charles I., and 
then in the person of John Parkinson. He, like his literary prede¬ 
cessors in the art, Gerarde and Johnson, was a botanist and man of me¬ 
dicine, ns well as a gardener; an union of scientific pursuits naturally 
occurring in an age when physic derived its remedies chiefly from plants ; 
when to be an apothecary, was to be “ a culler of simples,” and when he ! 
necessarily was best provided with these, and with a knowledge of them, 
who, like Gerarde and Parkinson, had “ a Physic Garden.” 
John Parkinson, was born in 1567, according to the date on his por¬ 
trait prefixed to his “ Paradisus,” and was by profession an apothecary, 
and so eminent as to act in that capacity to James I. Yet he docs not 
appear to have held it as more than an honorary appointment, for when | 
the death of the king was announced to be the result of murderous treat- ■ 
ment, a Dutch apothecary only is named. Thus Dr. Goodman says :— 
“ Truly I think that King James every autumn did feed a little more than 
moderately upon fruits : he had his grapes, his nectarines, and other 
fruits in his own keeping ; besides, we did see that he fed very plentifully 
on them from abroad. I remember that Mr. French of the Spicery, who 
sometimes did present him with the first strawberries, cherries, and other 
fruits, and kneeling to the king, had some speech to use to him,—that he 
did desire his majesty to accept them, and that he was sorry they were 
no better—with such like complimental words; but the king never had 
the patience to hear him one word, but his hand was in the basket. After , 
this eating of fruit in the springtime, his body fell into a great looseness, 
which although while he was young did tend to preserve his health, yet 
now, being grown toward sixty, it did a little weaken his body, and going 
to Theobalds, to Newmarket, and stirring abroad when as the coldness of 
the year was not yet past almost, it could not be prevented but he must 
fall into a quartan ague, for recovery whereof the physicians taking one 
course, and the plaister another, I fear the king was wronged between 
both : and I wonder why the king’s surgeons, as I take it, Mr. Watson 
and others who opened the body, had not been examined, as likewise Mr. 
Woolphengus Banger, the king’s Dutch apothecary, a very honest man, 
who did there daily attend; yet I confess, in my own particular, I had 
some informations both from him and from the surgeons, and in truth I 
was not well persuaded of the death of the king, nor of the Marquis 
Hamilton.” 
Parkinson was also a distinguished horticulturist and botanist, his 
“ Theatre of Plants ” obtaining for him, from Charles the I., the title of 
“ Botanicus Regius Primarius.” His knowledge of plants was not ob¬ 
tained merely from books, for he spent nearly forty years in travelling 
(Paradisus p. 63.1, and was proprietor of a garden well-stocked with 
scarce plants. The time of his death is not ascertained, but it occurred 
between 1640 and 1656. His first publication was—“ Paradisi in sule 
Paradisus terrestris, or a garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which 
our English ayre will permitt to be noursed up, with a kitchen-garden 
of all manner of herbes, rootes, and fmites for meate or sause, used 
with us, and an orchard of all sorte of fruit bearing trees and shrubbes 
fit for our land; together with the right orderinge, planting, and pre¬ 
serving of them, and their uses and vertues. 1629 .” This folio has an 
engraved title page representing the garden of Eden, a portrait of the 
author, and 109 woodcuts of fruits and flowers. The dedication is to the 
Queen. A second edition appeared corrected and enlarged, after his 
death, in 1656. In 1640 appeared his “ Theatrum Botannicum, or Theatre 
of Plants, or an Herbal of large extent, &c.”—The most extensive bo¬ 
tanical work then extant. 
The first portion of the title of his work to which we shall confine our 
attention, was intended to convey, in Latin, that it described the contents 
of his own garden—“ The Terrestrial Paradise, Paradisi of a Park, in 
sole, in {the) sun.” This “ Paradisus,” we learn from the dedication, j 
was written long before it was published.—“Some through an evil j 
disposition ” having charged him with having obtained the work from 
some other person—a charge we may believe to be without foundation, as 
we have no mention of it but in his own preface. 
In the first chapter he considers, “The situation of a garden of 
pleasure, (f. e. a flower-garden,) with the nature of soyles, and how to 
mend the defects, &c.” Sheltered from the north ; and not on the east, 
or on the west side of the house, not on moorish ground, or near any 
manufactory, that may taint the air with smoke, “especially of sea coals [ 
which of all others is the worst, as our City of London can give proof 
sufficient, wherein neither herb nor tree will long prosper, nor hath done 
ever since the use of sea coals began to be frequent therein.” Black 
mould he thought the best soil for it, and stiff clay the worst. In “The 
frame or forme of a garden of delight or pleasure,” his plans are the very 
quintessence of regularity and formality, yet one remark is judicious— 
“ The fairer ahd larger your allies and walks be, the mdre grace your 
garden shall have.” In speaking of the herbs, &c., of which the borders 
of the beds may be formed, he says that germander used before his time 
to be employed for this purpose, as thrift was chiefly then, germander, 
however, was still in use, because “ the cuttings are much used as a 
strawing herbe for houses.” Hyssop, marjory, savory, and thyme, were 
employed for the purpose, but lavender cotton was in greater request “ of 
late daies, being rare, novel, and for the most part but in the gardens 
of great persons.” Juniper and yew were also used, but he recommends j 
above all the box, though it was “ only received into the gardens of the 
curious.” Of dead materials for edgings, sheet lead, oak boards, shank [ 
bones of sheep, tiles, round whitish pebbles, are severally admired, but 
especially the last “ for durability, beauty of the sight, handsomeness in 
the work, and ease in the working and charge,”—but jaw bones, “ used 
in the Low Countries, are too gross and base.” In writing “ Of the 
nature and names of divers outlandish flowers, &c.,” he mentions of 
Daffodils “almost an hundred sorts,” including our Narcissus, Jonquil, 
&c., and of Fritillaria, “ half a score.” Hyacinths above 50—of the 
Crocus 20, spring and autumn-flowering, &c., Meadow Saffron many 
varieties. Lilies 20, including Crown Imperials, and Martagons. Of 
Tulips, “ which are the pride of delight almost infinite,” he had 160 in 
his own possession, yet he doubted not there were ten times as many. 
So generally was this flower admired, that he says scarce any lady of 
worth but was a delighter in them. Anemonies (Lobel, gives a list of 33 
varieties), Bear’s Ears or French Cowslips, Flower-de-luces, Ilepaticas, 
Cyclamen, Leucoium, Musk Grape flower, Star flowers, Spiderworf, 
Wolf’s Bane, Christmas flower, Bell flower, Yellow Lark-spur, Flower- 
gentle, Flower of the Sun, Marvel of Peru, Double Marsh, and French 
Marigold, double Red Ranunculus, Jasmines, double Honeysuckles, 
Ladies Bower, Roses, Bay Cherry, Oleander, Syringas, Pyracantha, 
Laurustinus, and Mezereon, conclude his list of flowers, &c., “ to be 
planted in gardens of pleasure for delight.” “ Of such flowers as being 
cultivated in this country for a great length of period, were considered as 
English flowers,” he mentions Primroses and Cowslips, yellow and 
green, both double and single—Single Rose Campions, white, red, and 
blush—double red Rose Campion—Nonsuch white, blush orange, and 
double orange—Batchelor’s Buttons, white and red—Wall-flowers, double 
and single—Stock Gilliflowers—the single “ in every woman’s garden ”— 
“ the double possessed by few.”—Queen or Winter Gilliflowers—Violets 
—Snapdragon—Columbines, many varieties, single and double—“ Larkes 
heeles, or spurres, or toes”—many single and double, “ the double rare” 
—Pansies—Double Poppies—Double Daisies, many varieties—Double 
and French Marigolds.—Carnations and Gilliflowers many, they being 
“ the queen of delights and of flow r ers,” “ and that because Carnations 
and Gilliflowers be the chiefest flowers of account in all our English 
gardens ” he treats more largely here of the “ true manner and order to 
increase and preserve them.” Propagating them by layers he says is 
“ of later invention.” To protect the Carnations from earwigs, some 
persons place them in cups with a rim full of water round—a totally 
inefficient remedy, as these vermin are gifted with wings. The whole 
chapter contains as judicious directions for the culture of this flower as 
any that modern times have produced—the only point on which he does 
not afford instruction, being the nature of the soil best suited to them. 
Modern ingenuity has improved the arrangement, and conveniences for 
sheltering them—but Parkinson’s mode of culture is little altered to this 
day. Pinks—Sweet Williams—Sweet Johns, many—Pseonies, single and 
double—Hollihocks many, single and double—Roses many, “ the white, 
the red, and the damaske are the most ancient standards in England.” 
In speaking of “ The Ordering of the Kitchen-garden,” he says:— 
English seed of the following kinds was esteemed more than any that 
were imported, viz., Radish, Lettuce, Carrots, Parsnips, Turnips, Cab¬ 
bages, and Leeks, yet to raise Cabbage seed was very difficult in our 
climate, the stocks being spoiled by the severe winters, to obviate which 
“ they bring them into the house, and there wrap them either in cloths, 
or other things to defend them from the cold, and hang them up in a dry 
place until the beginning of the March following, &c.” But little Onion 
seed was grown by gardeners here, and that “for their own, or their 
private friends spending.” His observations on Melon growing demon¬ 
strate the ignorance w hich existed as to forcing ; for though he directs 
the seed to be sown in a hotbed, it was not to be done until April, and 
the plants were to be moved out into very rich soil without bottom-heat, 
and to “ cover them with straw, (some do use great hollow glasses like 
unto bell heads) or some such other things to defend them from cold 
evenings or days, and the heat of the sun while they are young and new 
planted.” The Melon he says was eaten with pepper, salt, and wine. 
Speaking of Sallet Herbs, he commences with Asparagus, “ a principal 
and delectable sallet herbe,” which was boiled and eaten with butter and 
vinegar. Of its cultivation he is cursory, and nothing nearly so correct as 
Cato in his “ De Re Rustica.” Lettuces, (eleven sorts) Cabbage and 
“ open Lettuces ” that were to be tied together that the inner leaves may 
become whitish.” Spinach “ a sallet that hath little or no tastc.^ and, 
therefore, cooks know how to make many a good dish of meat with it, by 
putting sugar and spice thereto.” Cabbages and Coleworts (eleven 
sorts) were almost confined to the poorer sort of people, yet some might 
be dressed so as “to delight a curious palate.” The mid-ribs of the 
leaves were boiled and eaten cold with vinegar and oil. Cauliflowers 
“arc to be had in this country but very seldom, for that it is hard to 
meet with good seed.” Endive, plain, and curled. His mode of bleaching 
in sand, is still the best that can be practised. Clove Gilliflowers, mixed 
with sugar and vinegar “ make a sallet now-a-days in the highest esteem 
with gentles and ladies of the greatest note.” Rhubarb (Rhea rapon- 
ticum) was introduced by Parkinson, being sent to him “ from beyond 
sea ” by “ Mr. Dr. Mattli. Lister.” Artichokes (eight kinds), but sf these 
“our English red Artichoke is in our country the most delicate meat of 
any of the other, therefore divers thinking it to be a several kind, have 
sent them into Italy, France, and the Low Countries,” where they 
always degenerated in two years. The Chardon “ we cannot find the 
true manner of dressing, that our country may take a delight therein.” 
I 
1 
No. CXLVIL, Vol. VI. 
