Doflembej!  17,  1898. 
JOURNAL  OF'  EORTIGULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  OARDFINER. 
579 
HORTICULTDRAL  HISTORY  NOTES. 
Hackney's  Famous  Nursery. 
Some  people  who  h&ve  never  been  to  Hackney  have  formed,  I 
find,a  not  very  pleasant  impression  of  this  north-eastern  suburb  and  its 
neighbours  Homerton  and  Bjw,  from  what  they  have  read  or  heard 
about  them.  They  fancy  the  district  is  a  dreary  one,  neither  town 
Besides  this  are  South  Hackney  Common  of  20  acres,  and  the  historic 
London  Fields  of  26  more,  while  the  Downs  and  the  Mill  Fields  are 
nearly  100  acres  ;  and  then  there  is  Hackney  Marshes  of  thrice  that 
extent,  with  sundry  smaller  plots.  About  fifty  years  ago,  however, 
!  the  houses  were  few,  nurserymen  and  market  gardeners  had  under 
I  cultivation  160  acres,  and  the  grass  land  was  1500  acres  or  more, 
i  In  early  times,  part  of  the  old  forest  of  Middlesex  extended  over 
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nor  country,  low-lying,  rather  marshy,  with  much  of  itc  population 
living  on  the  verge  of  poverty,  in  tenements  representative  of  the 
jerry  builder.  Yet,  on  a  visit,  you  would  say  Hackney  has  its 
pleasant  aspects,  though  it  may  not  be  one  of  the  most  cheerful  or 
finest  London  suburbs,  and  horticulture  ia  by  no  means  a  lost  art  in 
the  district.  Nor  is  it  at  all  hard-up  for  open  spacea,  since  Victoria 
Park,  with  its  244  acres,  is  close  to  Hackney,  where  the  beds  and 
border! ,  in  most  years,  make  a  show  rivalling  the  Weat  End  parks. 
Hackney.  The  name  is  ancient,  but  the  origin  of  it  is  unknown. 
Doubtful,  too,  is  the  tradition  that  the  place  gave  its  name  to  the 
first  hackney  coaches  that  traversed  London  streets. 
We  can  scarcely  realise  the  fact,  when  we  look  at  modern 
Hackney,  that  it  waa  once  chosen  as  a  place  of  residence  not  only 
by  many  well-to-do  citizens,  but  also  by  noblemen  and  courtiers. 
Amongst  these  were  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Oxford,  the  Lords 
Brooke,  Hunsden,  and  Rich,  with  others  ;  yet  it  was  not  through 
