lxxviii:1 See Petrarch de Remed. utriusque fortunae L. 1. Dial. 57.
lxxix:1 Vide & Curtium, l. 7. &c.
lxxx:1 De R. R.
lxxx:2 In agris erant tunc Senatores. Cic. de Senect.
lxxx:3 Silvae sunt Consule dignae. See this of the Poet Interpreted, Scaliger l. 2. c. 1. Poet. P. Nennius, Sueton. Jul. in Lipsium. Tacit, iv. Annal. 27. concerning the Quæstor’s Office.
lxxxii:1 Palissy, le Moyen de devenir Riche.
lxxxiii:1 Praefat ad P. Silvinum; which I earnestly recommend to the serious perusal of our Gentry. Et mihi ad sapientis vitam proximè videtur accedere. Cic. de Senectute.
lxxxv:1 Ne silvae quidem, horridiorque naturae facies medicinis carent, sacra illa parente rerum omnium, nusquam non remedia disponente homini ut Medicina, fieret etiam solitudo ipsa, &c. Hinc nata Medicina, &c. Haec sola naturae placuerat esse remedia parata vulgo, inventu facilia, ac sine impendio, ex quibus vivimus, &c. Plin. l. 24. c. 1.
lxxxvii:1 Consult Hist. Roy. Soc. and their Registers.
The Laws of Motion, and the Geometrical streightning of Curve Lines were first found out by Sir Christopher Wren and Mr. Thomas Neile.
The equated isocrone Motion of the weight of a Circular Pendulum in a Paraboloid, for the regulating of Clocks; and the improving Pocket-Watches by Springs applied to the Ballance, were first invented and demonstrated to this Society by Dr. Hooke; together with all those New and useful Instruments, Contrivances and Experiments, Mathematical and Physical, publish’d in his Posthumous Works by the most accomplish’d Mr. Waller, Secretary to the R. Society. And since those the incomparably learned Sir Isaac Newton, now President of the Royal Society; Mr. Haly, the Worthy Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford; Dr. Grew, and several more, whose Works and useful Inventions sufficiently celebrate their Merits: I did mention the Barometer, to which might be added the prodigious effects of the Speculum Ustorium, surpassing what the French pretend to, as confidently, or rather audaciously, they do, and to other admirable Inventions, injuriously arrogated by Strangers, tho’ due of right to Englishmen, and Members of this Society; but ’tis not the business of this Preface to enumerate all, tho’ ’twas necessary to touch on some Instances.
xciii:1 Neh. 2. 19.
xciii:2 Neh. 4. 17.
xcvi:1 Since this Epistle was first written and publish’d the University of Oxford have instituted, and erected a Society for the promoting of Natural and Experimental Knowledge, in consort with the R. Society, with which they keep a mutual Correspondence: This mention, for that some Malevolents had so far endeavour’d to possess divers Members of the University; as if the Society design’d nothing less than the undermining of that, and other illustrious Academies, and which indeed so far prevail’d, as to breed a real Jealousy for some considerable time: But as this was never in the Thoughts of the Society (which had ever the Universities in greatest Veneration) so the Innocency and Usefulness of its Institution has at length disabus’d them, vindicated their Proceedings, dissipated all Surmises, and, in fine, produced an ingenious, friendly and candid Union and Correspondence between them.
That I have frequently inserted divers Historical and other Passages, apposite, agreeable to the Subject (abstaining from a number more which I might have added) let it be remember’d that I did not altogether compile this Work for the sake of our ordinary Rustics, (meer Foresters and Wood-men) but for the more Ingenious; the Benefit, and Diversion of Gentlemen, and Persons of Quality, who often refresh themselves in these agreeable Toils of Planting, and the Garden: For the rest, I may perhaps in some places have made use of (here and there) a Word not as yet so familiar to every Reader; but none, that I know of, which are not sufficiently explained by the Context and Discourse. That this may yet be no prejudice to the meaner Capacities, let them read for
Ablaqueation, laying bare the Roots.
Amputation, cutting quite off.
Arborator, Pruner, or one that has care of the Trees.
Avenue, the principal Walk to the Front of the House or Seat.
Bulbs, round or Onion-shap’d Roots.
Calcine, burn to Ashes.
Compost, Dung.
Conservatory, Green-house to keep choice Plants, &c. in.
Contr’espaliere, a Palisade or Pole-hedge.
Coronary Garden, Flower-Garden.
Culinary, belonging to the Kitchin, Roots, Salading, &c.
Culture, Dressing.
Decorticate, to strip off the Bark.
Emuscation, cleansing it of the Moss.
Esculent, Roots, Salads, &c. fit to eat.
Espalieres, Wall-fruit Trees.
Exotics, outlandish, rare and choice.
Fermentation, working.
Fibrous, stringy.
Frondation, stripping of Leaves, and Boughs.
Heterogeneous, repugnant.
Homogeneous, agreeable.
Hyemation, protection in Winter.
Ichnography, Ground-plot.
Inoculation, budding.
Insition, Graffing.
Insolation, exposing to the Sun.
Interlucation, thinning and disbranching of a Wood.
Irrigation, Watering.
Laboratory, Still-house.
Letation, Dung.
Lixivium, Lee.
Mural, belonging to the Wall.
Olitory, Acetary, Salads, &c. belonging to the Kitchin-Garden.
Palisade, Pole-hedge.
Parterre, Flower-Garden, or Knots.
Perennial, continuing all the year.
Quincunx, Trees set like the Cinque-point of a Dy.
Rectifie, re-distil.
Seminary, Nursery.
Stercoration, Dunging.
S. S. S. Stratum super Stratum, one bed, or layer upon another.
Tonsile, that which may be shorn, or clip’d.
Topiary-works, the clipping, cutting and forming of Hedges, &c. into Figures and Works.
Vernal, belonging to the Spring, &c. The rest are obvious.
1. The French Gard’ner, III. Edition, Twelves, with Mr. Rose’s Vineyard.
2. Fumi-fugium: Or, A Prophetic Invective against the Smoke of London. Quarto.
3. Silva: Or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees, &c. the IVth Edition, very much improv’d. Folio.
4. Kalendarium Hortense, both in Folio and Octavo. The Xth Edition, much augmented.
5. Sculptura: Or, The History of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper, the Original and Progress of that Art, &c. Octavo.
6. The Parallel of Architecture, being an Account of Ten famous Architects, with a Discourse of the Terms, and a Treatise of Statues. Folio. 2d Edition.
7. The Idea of the Perfecting of Painting. Octavo.
8. Navigation and Commerce, their Original and Progress. Octavo.
9. Publick Employment and an Active Life, prefer’d to Solitude and its Appanages, &c. Octavo.
10. Terra: Or, A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, the IIId Edition. Folio and Octavo.
11. Numismata, a Discourse of Medals; to which is added, A Digression concerning Physiognomy. Folio.
12. Acetaria: Or, A Discourse of Sallets. 2d Edition.
Naming the last Discourse (save one) I take this Opportunity to acquit my self of some Omissions and Mistakes, left out in the Errata of Numismata; but, upon discovery, immediately after, notify’d, and reform’d in the next Philosophical Transactions of that Month.
cii:1 Gen. 1. c. 2.
R. Bohun.
ciii:1 Libro de coloribus.
ciii:2 De origine formarum.
civ:1 De Wotton in agro Surriensi.
civ:2 Consule librum Auctoris de Architectura.
Jo. Evelyn, Fil.
I never had any other Desire so strong, and so like to Covetousness as that one which I have had always, That I might be Master at last of a small House and large Garden, with very moderate Conveniencies joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my Life only to the Culture of them, and study of Nature,
Or as Virgil has said, shorter and better for me, that I might there Studiis florere ignobilis otî (though I could wish that he had rather said, Nobilis otii, when he spoke of his own:) But several accidents of my ill Fortune have disappointed me hitherto, and do still of that Felicity; for though I have made the first and hardest step to it, by abandoning all Ambitions and Hopes in this World, and by retiring from the noise of all Business and almost Company; yet I stick still in the Inn of a hired House and Garden, among Weeds and Rubbish; and without that pleasantest Work of Human Industry, the Improvement of something which we call (not very properly, but yet we call) our own. I am gone out from Sodom, but I am not yet arrived at my little Zoar: O let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my Soul shall live. I do not look back yet: but I have been forced to stop, and make too many halts. You may wonder, Sir, (for this seems a little too extravagant and Pindarical for Prose) what I mean by all this Preface; it is to let you know, That though I have mist, like a Chymist, my great End, yet I account my Affections and Endeavours well rewarded by something that I have met with by the bye; which is, that they have procur’d to me some part in your Kindness and esteem; and thereby the honour of having my Name so advantagiously recommended to Posterity, by the Epistle you are pleased to prefix to the most useful Book that has been written in that kind, and which is to last as long as Months and Years.
Among many other Arts and Excellencies which you enjoy, I am glad to find this Favourite of mine the most predominant, That you choose this for your Wife, though you have hundreds of other Arts for your Concubines; though you know them, and beget Sons upon them all, (to which you are rich enough to allow great Legacies) yet the issue of this seems to be design’d by you to the main of the Estate; you have taken most pleasure in it, and bestow’d most Charges upon its Education; and I doubt not to see that Book, which you are pleased to promise to the World, and of which you have given us a large earnest in your Calendar, as accomplish’d, as any thing can be expected from an Extraordinary Application, and no ordinary Expences, and a long Experience. I know no body that possesses more private Happiness than you do in your Garden; and yet no Man who makes his Happiness more publick, by a free communication of the Art and Knowledge of it to others. All that I my self am able yet to do, is only to recommend to Mankind the search of that Felicity, which you instruct them how to find and to enjoy.
Abraham Cowley.
Chertsea, Aug 16, 1666.
1. It is not my intention here to speak of earth, as one of the common reputed elements; of which I have long since publish’d an ample account, in an express Treatise (annexed to this volume,) which I desire my reader to peruse; since it might well commute for the total omission of this chapter, did not method seem to require something briefly to be said: Which first, as to that of earth, we shall need at present to penetrate no deeper into her bosom, than after paring of the turfe, scarrifiying the upper-mould, and digging convenient pits and trenches, not far from the natural surface, without disturbing the several strata and remoter layers, whether of clay, chalk, gravel, sand, or other successive layers, and concrets fossil, (tho’ all of them useful sometimes, and agreeable to our foresters;) tho’ few of them what one would chuse before the under-turfe, black, brown, gray, and light, and breaking into short clods, and without any disagreeable scent, and with some mixture of marle or loame, but not clammy; of which I have particularly spoken in that Treatise.
2. In the mean time, this of the soil, (which I think is a more proper term for composts) or mould rather, being of greater importance for the raising, planting, and propagation of trees in general, must at no hand be neglected, and is therefore on all occasions mentioned in almost every chapter of our ensuing discourse; I shall therefore not need to assign it any part, when I have affirm’d in general, that most timber-trees grow and prosper well in any tolerable land which will produce corn or rye, and which is not in excess stony; in which nevertheless there are some trees delight; or altogether clay, which few, or none do naturally affect; and yet the oak is seen to prosper in it, for its toughness preferr’d before any other by many workmen, though of all soils the cow-pasture doth certainly exceed, be it for what purpose soever of planting wood. Rather therefore we should take notice how many great wits and ingenious persons, who have leisure and faculty, are in pain for improvements of their heaths and barren Hills, cold and starving places, which causes them to be neglected and despair’d of; whilst they flatter their hopes and vain expectations with fructifying liquors, chymical menstruums, and such vast conceptions; in the mean time that one may shew them as heathy and hopeless grounds, and barren hills as any in England, that do now bear, or lately have born woods, groves, and copses, which yield the owners more wealth, than the richest and most opulent wheat-lands: and if it be objected that ’tis so long a day before these plantations can afford that gain; the Brabant Nurseries, and divers home-plantations of industrious persons are sufficient to convince the gain-sayer. And when by this husbandry a few acorns shall have peopl’d the neighbouring regions with young stocks and trees; the residue will become groves and copses of infinite delight and satisfaction to the planters. Besides, we daily see what course lands will bear these stocks (suppose them oaks, wall-nuts, chess-nuts, pines, firr, ash, wild-pears, crabs, &c.) and some of them (as for instance the pear and the firr or pine) strike their roots through the roughest and most impenetrable rocks and clefts of stone it self; and others require not any rich or pinguid, but very moderate soil; especially, if committed to it in seeds, which allies them to their mother and nurse without renitency or regret: And then considering what assistances a little care in easing and stirring of the ground about them for a few years does afford them: What cannot a strong plow, a winter mellowing, and summer heats, incorporated with the pregnant turf, or a slight assistance of lime, loam, sand, rotten compost, discreetly mixed (as the case may require) perform even in the most unnatural and obstinate soil? And in such places where anciently woods have grown, but are now unkind to them, the fault is to be reformed by this care; and chiefly, by a sedulous extirpation of the old remainders of roots, and latent stumps, which by their mustiness, and other pernicious qualities, sowre the ground, and poyson the conception; and herewith let me put in this note, that even an over-rich, and pinguid composition, is by no means the proper bed either for seminary or nursery, whilst even the natural soil it self does frequently discover and point best to the particular species, though some are for all places alike: Nor should the earth be yet perpetually crop’d with the same, or other seeds, without due repose, but lie some time fallow to receive the influence of heaven, according to good husbandry. But I shall say no more of these particulars at this time, because the rest is sprinkl’d over this whole work in their due places; wherefore we hasten to the following title; namely, the choice and ordering of the seeds.
3. Chuse your seed of that which is perfectly mature, ponderous and sound; commonly that which is easily shaken from the boughs, or gathered about November, immediately upon its spontaneous fall, or taken from the tops and summities of the fairest and soundest trees, is best, and does (for the most part) direct to the proper season of interring, &c. according to institution.