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JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER.  December  IS,  1901. 
Marriages  and  funerals  alone  called  for  great  quantities, 
but  beyond  all  these  we  have  to  look  to  the  religious  festivals 
held  in  the  summer  season  for  the  most  lavish  employment 
of  flowers.  Priests  were  adorned  with  chaplets  of  Roses, 
shrines  were  dressed  with  them  and  other  flowers,  and  the 
very  streets  through  which  processions  perambulated  were 
strewn  with  living  floral  carpets.  Nor  must  it  be  taken  for 
granted  that  the  flowers  used  were  gifts  from  private  persons 
who  possessed  gardens.  Old  churchwardens’  accounts  give 
annual  disbursements  for  flowers,  the  chief  of  which  we  may 
well  believe  was  the  Rose,  a  flower  which  was  also  in  great 
request  in  medicine,  and,  in  the  form  of  rosewater,  in 
cookery.  Physicians  also,  though  they  cultivated  for  their 
own  use  many  simples,  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  been 
able  to  produce  a  sufficient  quantity  to  meet  their  demands. 
Therefore  we  may  safely  conclude  that  the  market  gardener, 
the  old  “  hortulanus,”  had  a  standing  from  a  very  early  date. 
It  is  equally  clear  that  the  commoner  fruits — Apples  and 
Pears,  Chestnuts  and  Quinces,  and  perhaps  Cherries — for 
did  not  poor  “Lackpenny”  have  bunches  of  them  offered  for 
sale  in  London  streets— were  also  cultivated  for  public  con¬ 
sumption.  It  is  known  that  fruit  was  imported,  and  most 
of  the  earliest  recorded  names  of  Pears  are  French ;  such 
are  the  Calcol,  St.  Renel  or  Regie,  de  Martin,  Jannetar,  and 
others ,  but  of  the  same  date  we  find  the  Sorrel  Pear  and 
Gold  Knops,  the  latter  still  in  cultivation,  in  last  century. 
Then  we  have  the  Costard  Apple  appearing  as  early  as 
Edward  III.,  which,  whether  of  French  or  home  origin, 
certainly  bears  an  English  designation. 
It  is  recorded  of  the  year  1257  that  the  season  was  of 
so  inclement  a  nature  that,  among  other  products,  “  Apples 
were  scarce,  Pears  still  scarcer ;  Cherries,  Plums,  Figs,  and 
all  kinds  of  fruit  included  in  shells,  almost  quite  destroyed.” 
Later  chronicles  of  course  assume  a  much  later  date  for  the 
introduction  of  some  of  these,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  flowers 
and  vegetables,  we  must  not  accept  their  statements  too 
literally.  Hume,  for  instance  (“History  of  England”), 
states  that  no  salad  or  roots  were  produced  in  England  till 
about  1547.  Hollingshed,  on  the  other  hand,  states  that 
salads  were  used  in  the  time  of  Edward  IV.  And  the  word 
salad,”  it  must  be  noted,  had  a  wider  meaning  in  early 
times  than  we  give  to  it.  Not  only  were  the  usual  vegetables 
eaten  raw  called  a  salad,  but  so  was  a  vegetable  or  flower 
pickled,  or  any  vegetable,  such  as  Spinach,  cooked.  Nor 
WGje  iTey  Particular  in  distinguishing  what  was  a  vegetable 
and  what  a  flower.  The  Violet  was  eaten  as  well  as  delighted 
m  for  its  scent,  and  the  Strawberry  yielded  its  leaves  for 
pottage,  as  well  as  its  fruit  for  dessert.  But  of  cultivated 
plants  the  greatest  number  seem  to  have  been  used  in  medi¬ 
cine.  The  names  appearing  in  ancient  medical  recipes  is 
most  extensive,  and  though  some  of  them  are  wild  plants, 
there  is  distinct  evidence  to  show  that  they  were  also 
cultivated. 
I  will  conclude  these  notes  with  the  names  of  a  selection 
of  these  plants,  and  in  the  next  article  will  treat  of  the 
i  ourteenth  century  garden  as  portrayed  by  Chaucer :  — 
•Southernwood,  Wormwood,  and  Mugwort,  representatives 
of  the  genus  Artemisia.  Of  the  Dock  family,  Sorrel,  Rumex 
sanguinea,  R.  alpinum,  and,  allied  to  these,  Oxalis  aeeto- 
sella,  in  use  till  a  late  period,  and  cultivated  in  gardens. 
Of  Euphorbias,  the  Catapuce,  E.  Lathyris,  and  E.  isula. 
Wild  Celery,  Dill,  Aniseed,  Chervil,  and  Parsley  as  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  the  Umbelliferse.  Garden  Cress,  Water 
( !ress,  Brooklime,  Radishes,  Mustard,  and  Rape  of  the  Cress 
family.  The  Rose  by  Rosa  gallica,  R.  alba,  R.  canina,  and 
R  rubiginosa,  the  latter  generally  associated  with  Honey¬ 
suckle  ;  Columbine,  Periwinkle,  Primrose,  Cowslip,  Mari¬ 
gold,  Rosemary,  Chicory,  Fennel,  St.  John’s  Wort,  Wood¬ 
ruff,  Hollyhock,  Lavender,  White  Lily,  Meadowsweet, 
Y  arrow,  Gentiana  pneumonanthe,  and  G.  lutea.  Again, 
Orpine,  White  Poppv,  Thyme,  Paeony,  Rue,  Crocus  sativus, 
Salvia  sclarea,  and  Genista  tinctoria  are  some  others,  most 
o  which  would  have  been  unrecorded  save  for  old 
receipts. — B. 
Gardeners  and  Estate  Agents. 
Each  week  for  maiay  years  I  have  turned  with  pleasure 
and  expectation  to  the  series  of  delightfully  interesting 
articles  on  “  The  Home  Farm  ”  which  have  appeared  in  our 
Journal.  On  page  477  the  writer  of  those  notes  has  devoted 
a  portion  of  the  space  at  command  to  the  consideration  of 
the  above  subject  under  an  “  amended  ”  heading.  As  the 
article  is  unsigned  I  will  refer  to  the  writer  as  my  “  critic,” 
but  I  am  bound  to  add  that  the  criticisms  are  so  fair,  that 
the  subject  is  treated  of  in  so  impartial  a  spirit,  that  the 
“agent”  is  not  made  to  appear  in  a  more — or  rather  not 
much  more — favourable  light  than  the  gardener.  The  writer 
is  evidently  acquainted  with  the  difficulties  of  each  class  of 
men,  and  prefers  to  judge  them  individually  as  men  rather 
than  as  agents  or  gardeners. 
The  wielder  of  so  facile  a  pen  evidently  possesses  abun¬ 
dance  of  that  tact  which  my  critic  considers  is  an  essential 
quality  in  “  the  making  of  a  successful  agent.”  To  that  I 
should  like  to  add  that  if  in  the  ranks  of  estate  agents  to-day 
there  was  a  greater  proportion  of  such  men,  who  were  also 
fair-minded,  less  given  to  meddling,  the  friction  between 
them  and  gardeners — aye,  and  tenants,  too — would  be  in¬ 
finitely  less  than  it  is.  I  am  fully  conscious  of  the  many- 
sidedness  of  this  matter,  which  is  not  one  that  should  be 
stirred  without  due  consideration  ;  but  I  have  definite  infor¬ 
mation  that  the  friction  between  the  two  classes  has  greatly 
increased  during  the  last  ten  years,  and  has  been  largely 
brought  about  by  the  grasping  attempts  of  agents  to  get 
in  the  “  thin  end  of  the  wedge  ”  in  regard  to  the  control 
of  gardens  over  which  they  can  claim  no  legitimate  control. 
On  page  416  I  gave  instances  of  wrong-doing  in  this 
respect,  but  my  critic  seems  to  have  got  them  entangled 
with  cases  in  which  the  circumstances  are  totally  different. 
When,  through  reduced  circumstances,  a  landowner  engages 
an  agent  to  supervise  the  household  servants  and  the 
gardens,  as  well  as  manage  the  estate,  no  fault  can  be  found 
with  him  for  attending  to  his  business,  as  the  gardener 
understands  his  position,  and  the  landowner  has  a  perfect 
right  to  have  his  estate  managed  in  his  own  way.  Under 
such  conditions,  however,  one  generally  has  to  look  in  vain 
for  high  order  of  merit  in  any  department ;  it  is  simply  a 
matter  of  “  shuffling  along,  eye  service  only  all  round,  and 
general  degeneracy.” 
On  the  other  hand,  gardeners  who  have  perfect  control 
of  their  charges  take  such  a  keen  interest  in  them  that  there 
seems  no  limit  to  the  amount  of  energy  and  skill  which 
they  put  into  the  conduct  of  their  work,  and  even  with 
limited  expenditure  such  men  frequently  accomplish  wonders 
for  their  employers  ;  yet  these  are  just  the  men  that  agents 
frequently  attempt  to  interfere  with,  in  some  cases,  I  fear, 
principally  because  they  suit  their  employers  too  well.  They 
have  to  maintain  the  gardens  on  a  given  sum  per  year, 
which  the  agent  has  to  find,  and  also  to  supply  horses  and 
carts  for  haulage  (which  are  charged  to  the  gardens).  If 
the  expenditure  exceeds  the  amount  allowed,  the  gardener 
is  only  responsible  to  the  employer,  and  for  their  own  sake 
most  men  take  special  care  that  the  expenses  are  kept  within 
due  bounds.  Under  circumstances  of  the  above  description 
my  opponent  seems  to  think  “  that  it  is  a  gardener’s  own 
fault  if  he  allows  a  third  person  to  interfere  without  imme¬ 
diate  remonstrance.”  So  it  is  to  a  certain  extent,  and 
many  prominent  gardeners  to-day  have  found  it  necessary 
to  remonstrate  pretty  strongly  before  they  have  been  left  in 
peace,  and  in  some  cases  the  result  has  been  that  the 
gardener  has  become  the  agent ;  in  others  the  friction  has 
gone  on  for  years,  and  still  continues.  I  have  known  land- 
owners,  having  two  valued  servants,  to  put  up  with  a  great 
deal  of  annoyance  in  consequence  of  the  appeals  made  to 
them  alternately  by  their  agent  and  gardener,  and  I  have 
in  my  mind  many  excellent  examples  of  “  tact  ”  on  the  part 
of  the  employer. 
It  is  not,  however,  in  all  instances  that  an  employer  will 
be  troubled  many  times  with  such  matters  ;  he  may  have 
given  the  gardener  full  charge,  and  tells  him  plainly  that 
the  agent  is  not  to  interfere  with  him,  but  if  disputes  occur 
he  is  led  to  retain  the  agent  and  help  the  gardener  into 
another  situation,  which  is  often  a  good  thing  for  the  latter. 
The  next  gardener  engaged  is  distinctly  placed  under  the 
control  of  the  agent,  and  this  is  the  point  wnich  many  agents 
all  over  the  country  are  fighting  for  to-day.  Hence  my 
reason  for  sounding  a  warning  note  to  gardeners  generally, 
