On my table, as I write, is the copy of “Sylva” that John Evelyn himself gave to Sir Robert Morray, and in which he wrote in ink that is now faded and brown, as are his own autograph corrections in the text,

The title page runs thus:

This book was the first ever printed for the Royal Society, and contains, as may be seen, a practically complete record of seventeenth century planting and gardening, thus having an unique interest for all who follow the craft.

John Evelyn, from the day he began his lessons under the Friar in the porch of Wotton Church, was a curious observer of men and things, but especially was he devoted to all manners and styles of gardening.

Nothing was too small, too trivial to escape his notice; from the weather-cocks on the trees near Margate—put there on the days the farmers feasted their servants, to the interest he found in watching the first man he ever saw drink coffee.

The positions he held under Charles II. and James II. were many and varied, yet he found time to collect samples in Venice, and travel extensively, to write a Play, a treatise called: “Mundus Muliebris, or the Ladies’ Dressing Room, Unlocked,” and a pamphlet, called “Tyrannus, or the Mode,” in which he sought to make Charles II. dress like a Persian, and succeeded in so doing.

But above all these things he held his chiefest pleasure in seeing and talking of the arrangement of gardens, passing on this love to his son John, who, when a boy of fifteen, at Trinity College, Oxford, translated “Rapin, or Gardens,” the second book of which his father included in his second edition of “Sylva.”

His Majesty Charles II., to whom the “Sylva” is dedicated, was a monarch to whom justice has never been properly done. He is represented by pious but inaccurate historians, those men who for many years gave a false character of jovial good nature to that gross thief and sacrilegious monster, Henry VIII., as a King who spent most of his time in the Playhouse, or in talking trivialities with gay ladies, and in making witty remarks to all and sundry in his Court. The side of him that took interest in shipbuilding, navigation, astronomy, in the founding of the Royal Society, in the advancement of Art, in the minor matters of flower gardening and bee-keeping is nearly always suppressed. It was largely through his interest in this volume of Evelyn’s that the Royal forests were properly replanted; and it was in a great measure due to Royal interest that the parks and estates of the noblemen of England became famous in after years for their beautiful timber.

In that part of the “Sylva” dealing with forest trees, there were a hundred hints to all lovers of nature and of gardens, for your good gardener is a man very near in his nature to a good strong tree, and loves to observe the play of light and shade in the branches of those that give shade to his garden walks.

Evelyn tells us how the Ash is the sweetest of forest fuelling, and the fittest for Ladies’ Chambers, also for the building of Arbours, the staking of Espaliers, and the making of Poles. The white rot of it makes a ground for the Sweet-powder used by gallants. He tries to introduce the Chestnut as food, saying how it is a good, lusty and masculine food for Rustics; and commenting on the fact that the best tables in France and Italy make them a service. He tells us how the water in which Walnut husks and leaves are boiled poured on the carpet of walks and bowling-greens infallibly kills the worms without hurting the grass. That, by the way, is a matter for discussion among gardeners, seeing that some say that the movements of worms from below the surface to their cast on the lawn lets air among the grass roots and is good for them.

He tells us how the Horn-beam makes the stateliest hedge for long garden walks. He advises us how to make wine of the Birch, Ash, Elder, Oak, Crab and Bramble. He praises the Service-Tree, and the Eugh, and the Jasmine, saying of this last how one sorry tree in Paris where they grow “has been worth to a poor woman, near twenty shillings a year.”

All this and much besides of diverting and instructive reading, varied with remarks on the gardens of his friends and acquaintances, as when he “cannot but applaud the worthy Industry of old Sir Harbotle Grimstone, who (I am told) from a very small Nursery of Acorns which he sowed in the neglected corners of his ground, did draw forth such numbers of Oaks of competent growth; as being planted about his Fields in even and uniform rows, about one hundred foot from the Hedges; bush’d and well water’d till they had sufficiently fix’d themselves, did wonderfully improve both the beauty, and the value of his Demeasnes,” for the honour and glory of filling England with fine trees and gardens to improve, what he calls—the Landskip.

The exigencies of the present moment when Imperial Finance threatens to tax all good parks and orchards out of existence, and to make all fine flower gardens out of use, except to the enormously wealthy, makes the “Gard’ners Calendar” all the more interesting as showing what manner of flowers, fruits, and vegetables were in use in the Seventeenth Century, and the means employed to grow and preserve them.

Then, as now, there was a danger of over cultivation of certain plants and flowers, so that a man might have more pride in the number and curiosity of his flowers, than in the beauty and colour of them. It is a certain fault in modern gardeners that they do not study the grouping and massing of colours, but do, more generally, take pride in over-large specimens, great collections, and rare varieties. But this age and that are times of collecting, of connoisseurship, ages that produce us great art of their own but have an extraordinary knowledge of the arts and devices of the past. Not that I would decry the friendly competitions of this and that man to grow rare rock plants, or bloom exotics the one against another, but I do most certainly prefer a rivalry in producing beautiful effects of colour; and love better to see a great mass of Roses growing free than to see one poor tree twisted into the semblance of a flowering parasol as men now use in many of the small climbing Roses.

To the end that gardeners and lovers of gardens may know how those past gardeners treated their fruits and flowers, I give the whole of Evelyn’s “Gard’ners Calendar,” than which no more complete account of gardens of that time exists.

It would be as well to note, before arriving at our Seventeenth Century Calendar, how the art of gardening had grown in England after the time of the Romans.

From the time that every sign of the Roman occupation had been wiped out to the beginning of the thirteenth century, gardens as we know them to-day did not exist. The first attempts at gardens within castle walls were little plots of herbs and shrubs with a few trees of Costard Apples. It appears that all those plants and flowers the Romans cultivated had been lost, and that with the sterner conditions of living all such arrangements as arbours of cut Yew trees, or elaborate Box-edged paths had completely vanished. Certainly they did have arbours for shade, but of a simple kind and quite unlike the elaborate garden houses the Romans built.

There were vineyards and wine made from them as early as the Eighth Century, and in the reign of Edward the Third wine was made at Windsor Castle by Stephen of Bourdeaux. The Cherry trees brought here by the Romans had quite died out and were not recovered until Harris, Henry the Eighth’s Irish fruiterer, grew them again at Sittingbourne. In the Twelfth Century flower gardening again came in, and within the castle walls pleasant gardens were laid out with little avenues of fruit trees, and neat beds of flowers. Of the fruit trees there was the Costard Apple, the only Apple of that time, from which great quantities of cider—that “good-natured and potable liquor”—was made. There was the great Wardon Pear, from which the celebrated Wardon pies were made; they were Winter Pears from a stock originally cultivated by those great horticulturists the Cistercian monks of Wardon in Bedfordshire. Then there was also the Quince, called a Coyne, the Medlar, and I believe the Mulberry, or More tree. In the borders, Strawberries, Raspberries, Barberries and Currants were grown, that is in a well-stocked garden such as the Earl of Lincoln had in Holborn in 1290. Then there was a plot set aside as a Physic garden where herbs grew and salads of Rocket, Lettuce, Mustard, Watercress, and Hops. In one place, probably overlooking the pond or fountain which was the centre of such gardens, was an arbour, and walks and smaller gardens were screened off by wattle hedges. In that part of the garden devoted to flowers were Roses, Lilies, Sunflowers, Violets, Poppies, Narcissi, Pervinkes or Periwinkles. Lastly, and most important was the Clove Pink, or Gilly-flower, a variety of Wallflower then called Bee-flower. Add to this an apiary and you have a complete idea of the mediÆval garden.

Later, in the Fifteenth Century came a new feature into the garden, a mound built in the centre for the view, made sometimes of earth, but very often of wood raised up as a platform, and having gaily carved and painted stairways. These, with butts for archery, and bowling-greens, and a larger variety of the old kinds of flowers, showed the principal difference.

We come now to the gardens of the Sixteen Century, when flower gardening was extremely popular. Spenser and the other poets are always describing the beauties of flowers, and from these and old Herbals, from Bacon, Shakespeare and other writers of that time, we are able to see how, slowly but surely, the art of flower growing had advanced. The gardens were very exact and formal, and were divided in geometrical patterns, and grew large “seats” of Violets, Penny Royal, and Mint as well as other herbs. Above all, a new addition to the mounds, archery butts and bowling-greens, was the maze which had a place in every proper garden of the Elizabethans.

The first garden where flower growing was taken really seriously belonged to John Parkinson, a London apothecary who had a garden in Long Acre. Great importance was given to smell, as is highly proper, and flower gardens were bordered with Thyme, Marjoram and Lavender. Highly-scented flowers were the most prized, and for this reason the prime favourite the Carnation, was more grown than any other flower. Of this there were fifty distinct varieties of every shape and size, including the famous large Clove Pink, the golden coloured Sops-in-Wine.

With the increase in the variety of the Rose, of which about thirty kinds were known, came the fashion, quickly universal, of keeping potpourri of dried Rose leaves, many of which were imported from the East, from whence, years before, had come quantities of Roses to supply the demand in Winter in Rome.

As the fashion for growing flowers increased so, also, did the efforts of gardeners to procure new and rare flowers from foreign countries, and soon the Fritillary, Tulip and Iris were extensively cultivated, and were treated with extraordinary care.

Following this came the rage for Anemones and Ranunculi, in which people endeavoured to excel over their friends. And after that came in small Chrysanthemums, Lilac or Blue Pipe tree, Lobelia, and the Acacia tree.

It will be seen that within quite a short space of time the old garden containing few flowers, and only those as a rule that had some medicinal properties, vanished before a perfect orgy of colour and wealth of varieties; and that gardening for pleasure gave the people a new and fascinating occupation. The rage for Anemones and for the different kinds of Ranunculus developed until in the late Seventeenth Century the madness, for it was nothing else, for Tulip collecting came in, to give place still later to the Rose, and in our day only to be equalled by the collection of Chrysanthemums and Orchids.

The best books previous to Evelyn’s “Sylva” are Gervase Markham’s “Country House-Wife’s Garden,” (1617), and John Parkinson’s “Paradisus in Sole” (1629).

One word more on the subject of flower mania. The rage for the Tulip that attacked both English and Dutch in the late Seventeenth Century is one of the most peculiar things in the history of gardening. The Tulip is really a Persian flower, the shape of it suggesting the name, thoulyban, a Persian turban. It was introduced into England about 1577, by way of Germany, having been brought there by the German Ambassador from Constantinople. By the Seventeenth Century there had developed such a passion for this flower that it led to wreck and ruin of rich men who paid fabulous sums for the bulbs, a single bulb being sold for a fortune. One bulb of the Semper Augustus was sold for four thousand six hundred florins, a new carriage, a pair of grey horses, and complete harness. So great did the business in Tulips become that every Dutch town had special Tulip exchanges, and there speculators assembled and bid away vast sums to acquire rare kinds. The mania lasted about three years, and was only finally stopped by the Government.