September  11.  1902.  JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER . 
239 
always  at  it,  yet  by  some  clever  sleight  of  hand  and  foot 
contriving  to  spin  one  day’s  work  over  twTo.  The  man 
who  tootles  through  the  day  “  We  won’t  go  home  till  morn¬ 
ing,”  but  is  the  first  to  slip  off  at  night.  Thankful  one  is 
to  say  there  is  the  honest,  loyal  labourer,  good  to  see,  to 
speak  to,  and  to  have  ;  a  man  who  looks  you  straight  in 
the  face,  and  whose  daily  labour  seems  one  of  pleasure 
•  instead  of  painful  task.  His  moral  influence  in  the  garden 
is  incalculable,  and  to  the  gardener- — his  master — he  is  a 
tower  of  strength. — Quiz. 
(To  be  continued.) 
Old-time  Gardening. 
(Continued  from  page  123.) 
Trade  and  its  Effects. 
Ti’ading  companies,  e.g.,  the  English  Merchant  Adven¬ 
turers,  and  the  Hanseatic  League,  or  Steelyard  Com¬ 
pany,  had  been  engaged  for  centuries  in  an  import  and 
export  trade  with  England  previous  to  the  period  under 
review,  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  but  their  opera¬ 
tions  did  not  extend  beyond  the  Continent  and  its  great 
trade  emporiums,  wThence  the  products  of  the  East  were 
gathered,  to  be  sparingly  distributed  in  the  ports  of 
England  and  Scotland.  Chancellor’s  discoveries  in  Russia 
about  the  middle  of  this  century  produced  a  great  impulse 
in  trade.  That  was  further  increased  by  others  who 
followed,  and  wTho  pushed  farther  afield  into  Persia  and 
other  countries  of  that  marvellous  East,  the  goal  that  all 
adventurers  were  endeavouring  to  reach,  whether  from  the 
north-west,  the  north-east,  or  the  southmost  extremities 
of  the  two  vast  continents  which  stretch  far  into  southern 
seas. 
Capital  was  freely  provided  by  noblemen,  merchants, 
and  others,  and  the  reports  submitted  by  agents  prove  that 
all  alike  were  animated  by  a  sincere  desire  to  obtain  useful 
knowdedge,  as  well  as  to  extend  legitimate  trade.  Chan¬ 
cellor’s  first  report  descriptive  of  Muscovia,  as  in  reports 
made  by  others,  contains  very  fair  notes  on  native  vegeta¬ 
tion,  and  the  uses  to  which  it  was  put  by  .the  inhabitants. 
Some  items  are  perhaps  just  a  little  exaggerated,  or  in¬ 
cline  to  the  marvellous,  as  in  the  report  of  Jenkinson,  who 
tells  of  “  Pineapple  trees  lying  along  within  the  ground, 
which  by  report  have  been  there  since  Noe’s  flood.” 
A  copy  of  instructions  by  Richard  Hakluyt,  cousin  of 
the  “Collector”  of  voyages,  “to  Arthur  Pet  and  Ch.  Jack- 
man  for  the  Discovery  of  the  North-East  Strait,”  is  alto¬ 
gether  interesting.  They  were  to  bring  home,  among 
other  things,  dried  fruits  of  the  countries  visited,  and 
“  kernels  of  Peares  and  Apples  and  the  stones  of  stone 
-fruits,  seeds  of  all  strange  herbs  and  flowers,  for  such  seeds 
of  fruits  and  herbs  coming  from  another  part  of  the  world, 
and  so  far  off,  will  delight  the  fansie  of  many  for  the 
strangeness,  and  for  that  the  same  may  grow  and  continue 
the  delight  for  long  time.”  A  lengthy  list  of  “  Things  to 
be  carried  with  you  ”  includes  “  Prunes  damaske,  Dried 
Peares,  Walnuts,  Almonds,  Smal  Nuts,  The  Apple  John 
that  dureth  two  yere  to  make  show  of  our  fruits.”  They 
were  also  to  endeavour  to  find  a  market  for  Saffron,  “  be¬ 
cause  this  realme  yeelds  the  best  of  the  world.”  “  Garden 
seeds  as  well  of  sweet  strawing  herbs  and  of  flowers,  as  also 
of  pot  herbs  and  all  sorts  of  roots,”  were  to  be  carried  with 
them  for  sale. 
The  company  promoting  these  enterprises  had  been 
urged  to  secure  a  direct  trade  with  Syria  and  other  Eastern 
countries  before  the  Dutch  could  step  in,  and  as  a  result  in 
1581  a  charter  was  applied  for  and  granted  to  the  Levant 
Company,  by  whom  direct  business  relations  were  opened 
with  Turkey.  Hakluyt’s  instructions  to  the  Factor  of  this 
concern  at  Constantinople  in  1582  reiterates  the  desirability 
of  importing  examples  of  rare  vegetation,  and  as  an  in¬ 
ducement  he  gives  a  list  of  fruits,  &c.,  that  had  been  intro¬ 
duced  by  various  persons,  “  and  now,”  he  concludes, 
“  within  these  last  four  years  there  have  been  brought 
into  England  from  Vienna  in  Austria  divers  kinds  of 
flowers  called  Tulipas,  and  these  and  others  procured 
thither  a  little  before  from  Constantinople.”  In  1585  the 
Morocco  Company  was  instituted,  and  in  1588  the  Guinea 
Company  received  its  charter.  Private  merchants,  too, 
opened  agencies  in  suitable  centres,  and  we  discover  not 
a  few  instances  of  new  plants  being  introduced  through 
their  efforts. 
In  the  year  last  named  an  interesting  account  of  Vir¬ 
ginia  as  then  known  was  written  by  Thomas  Haniot, 
“servant  to  Sir  W.  Raleigh.”  Haniot  was  a  man  of  more 
than  average  ability,  and  very  painstaking,  and  the  “  Com¬ 
modities  of  Virginia  ”  contains  not  a  little  worthy  of 
notice  by  the  horticulturist.  Maize,  Tobacco,  and  the 
Potato  excited  most  largely  his  interest,  and  the  description 
of  the  latter,  as  it  is  the  earliest  on  record,  may  be  tran¬ 
scribed  as  an  example  of  his  method.  Native  designations, 
it  may  be  explained,  are  used  in  all  cases.  “  Openawk,” 
he  writes,  “  are  a  kinde  of  roots  of  round  form,  some  of  the 
bignesse  of  Walnuts,  some  far  greater,  which  are  found 
in  moist  and  marish  grounds  growing  many  together  one 
by  another  in  ropes,  as  though  they  were  fastened  with 
a  string.  Being  boiled  or  sodden  they  are  very  good 
meate.” 
The  expedition  of  which  Haniot  was  the  naturalist  left 
England  in  1585  and  returned  in  1586.  Whether  samples 
of  the  Potato  were  brought  back  is  doubtful,  though  it  was 
already  known  on  the  Continent,  and  Clusius  mentions 
having  acquired  the  plant  in  1588.  Lane,  the  commander 
of  the  expedition,  is  said  to  have  introduced  Tobacco,  but 
Hakluyt  shows  its  seeds  to  have  been  imported  from 
“West  India”  several  years  previously,  and  it  had  been 
cultivated  in  Spain  for  nearly  forty  years  in  advance  of  this 
time.  It  will  be  apparent  that  the  wonderful  activity  dis¬ 
played  by  the  English  during  the  latter  half  of  the  six¬ 
teenth  century,  alike  in  promoting  discovery  of  regions 
hitherto  unknown,  and  in  taking  means  to  extend  their 
trading  boundaries,  must  have  had  a  marked  effect  on 
gardening. 
Previous  to,  and  even  during  this  period,  novelties  in 
plants  were  procured  at  second  hand  from  Continental 
sources,  as  was  the  case  with  Tulips,  the  introduction  of 
which  by  Busbeguus  and  others  caused  the  greatest  ex¬ 
citement  in  almost  every  European  country.  Flowers,  as 
flowers,  were  perhaps  not  very  highly  esteemed,  and  it  is 
a  curious  fact  that  any  plant  not  useful  as  a  food  or  a 
medicine  was  always  recommended  in  a  somewhat  apolo¬ 
getic  manner.  Some  of  the  earliest  Tulips  were  indeed 
lost  because  the  recipient,  deeming  them  to  be  edible, 
made  his  supper  off  a  number,  and  planted  others  in  his 
garden  for  future  use.  When,  however,  the  Tulip  in  its 
great  variety  was  seen  in  flower,  along  with  Narcissus, 
Crown  Imperials,  and  other  plants  from  Constantinople, 
a  new  era  dawned  in  the  history  of  gardening.  Roots  of 
these  rare  plants  could  be  procured  only  by  favour,  and 
sometimes  at  a  great  price,  and  Lobel  gives  the  names  of 
the  chief  cultivators  in  several  countries,  just  as  to-day 
certain  horticulturists  obtain  more  than  a  local  fame  for 
certain  plants. 
The  introduction  of  so  many  exotics  had,  moreover,  a 
marked  effect  on  the  calling  of  the  gardener.  Previously, 
when  the  number  of  subjects  cultivated  was  confined  to  a 
not  very  large  collection  of  plants,  many  of  which  were 
indigenous,  or  so  long  established  as  to  be  practically  so, 
gardening  was  unquestionably  a  matter  of  rule  of  thumb. 
Now,  however,  a  gardener  had  to  think  for  himself  ;  he  had 
to  discover  methods  of  culture  suited  to  novelties,  causing 
him  to  break  from  the  time-honoured  practices  of  ages 
and  to  establish  new  systems  for  himself.  There  was,  too, 
a  general  extension  of  gardens,  and  Stone  mentions  a  high¬ 
handed  act  of  Elizabeth’s  favourite,  the  Earl  of  Essex, 
who  enlarged  his  garden  at  the  expense  of  the  chronicler’s 
father  and  others,  and  actually  moved  Stowe’s  house  back 
20yds  to  procure  more  ground  for  his  garden ! 
Gerarde’s  “  Historie  of  Plants,”  more  generally  recog¬ 
nised  as  the  “  Herbal,”  appeared  at  this  time.  Unlike 
other  Herbals  that  had  previously  appeared,  it  not  only 
discussed  the  more  legitimate  points  suitable  to  books  of 
that  nature,  but  it  also  treated  of  many  plants  quite  novel 
to  the  great  majority  of  garden  lovers  of  that  period,  and 
gave  slight  historical  notes  of  their  introduction,  and  how 
they  had  been  treated  by  the  writer,  however,  not  always 
with  that  success  which  authors  like  to  record.  For  these 
and  other  reasons  the  book  became  a  classic  on  gardening, 
not  even  the  “  Paradisus  ”  of  Parkinson,  published  thirty 
years  later,  seriously  affecting  its  popularity.  These  re¬ 
marks,  it  is  hoped,  will  make  a  short  study  of  Gerarde’s 
great  work  more  clear. — B. 
