Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/406

 306 STATE OF HORTICULTURE IN ENGLAND appellation from the Dutch word maeser, signifying a maple ^ and it is probable they were sometimes made of that material, as they were occasionally of the ash and other woods ; yet the timber of the walnut tree being often beautifully variegated would supply a material in every respect equal, if not superior, to the common maple. Nuts were cultivated in England in early times in order to obtain oil. It was estimated by an English writer of the early part of the fourteenth century that one quarter of nuts ought to yield four gallons of oil but he does not specify any par- ticular sort of nut. Little can be said with certainty respecting the varieties of culinary vegetables cultivated in England previously to the fifteenth century. The cabbage tribe was doubtless well known in the earliest times, and generally reared during the middle ages : of leguminous plants the pea and bean were grown in the thirteenth century ; the latter it will be recol- lected was among the products of the earl of Lincoln's garden in Holborn. The chief esculent root was probably beet, which is mentioned by Necham. The pot herbs and sweet herbs cultivated and used from a remote period, were the same which are enumerated by our native writers on horticul- ture of the early part of the seventeenth century^. Of salads the lettuce, rocket, mustard, watercress, and hop, are noticed by Necham. Onions, garlic, and leeks appear to have been the only alliaceous })lants in use before the year 1400. With these remarks I quit the kitchen, for the flower, garden. Our invaluable authority, Alexander Necham, says a " no- ble garden" should be arrayed with roses, lihes, sunflowers, violets and poppies ; he mentions also the narcissus (N. pseudo-. narcissus ?) The rose seems to have been cultivated from the most remote time ; early in the thirteenth century we find King John sending a wreath of roses to his lady, jo«r amours, at Ditton ; roses and lilies were among the plants bought for the royal garden at Westminster in 1.276 : the annual render- e See Arch. Journal, vol. ii, p. 262. from the character of the writing in each f " P^ vin (juarter de noyz deit respoun- being the same it may he conjectured with dre de iiij. galons de oille." Tlic title of probability, that he was the author of both this curious tract is," Ici aprent la manere works. Add. MS. 6159, fo. 220. coment horn deit charger baillifs e provoz g Compare Lawson's " Country House- sur lur acounte rendre de un nianer. E wife's Garden," chapters 7 and 8. Here I coment hom deit maner garder." Thetrea- may remark that Mr. Loudon in his " En- tise immediately following it, in the same cyclopajdia of Gardening" has attributed manuscript, purports to have been written the introduction of many pot and sweet by Sir Walter de llenlee, knight — "Ceste herbs to the sixttentli century which were Uite fist Sire Water de Henlee chivaler" — certainly known here long before.