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of charts, the conquest of Mexico and Peru, the search for gold, and the spread of the true faith, but also with the strange animals and plants which they saw; and the news which they brought back was eagerly received in Europe. Queen Isabella charged Columbus, when he set out for his second voyage, to bring her a collection of bird-skins; but this may be rather a proof of her love of millinery than of her interest in natural history. Pope Leo X. liked to read to his sister and the cardinals the Decades of Peter Martyr Anglerius,[3] in which the productions of the New World are described. The opossum, sloth, and ant-eater, the humming-bird, macaw, and toucan, the boa, monitor, and iguana, were made known for the first time. Potatoes and maize began to be cultivated in the south of Europe, the tomato was a well-known garden plant, the prickly pear was spreading along the shores of the Mediterranean, and tobacco was largely imported. By the end of the seventeenth century Mirabilis and the garden Tropæolum had been brought from Peru, the so-called African marigold from Mexico, and sunflowers from North America. More than a hundred years had still to run before the evening primrose, the passion flower, and the lobelias of America were to become familiar to European gardeners, ipecacuanha and cinchona to European physicians.

Agriculture, Horticulture, and Silk-Culture in the Sixteenth Century.

       Table of Contents

During the darkest parts of the Middle Ages agriculture and horticulture were regularly practised. Tyranny, the greed of settlers, the inroads of barbarians, private war, and superstition may destroy all that brightens human life, but they hardly ever exterminate the population of large districts,[4] and so long as men live they must till the soil.

      The age of Charlemagne was one of cruel hardship to the inhabitants of Western Europe, but the cartularies of the great king show that the improvement of horticulture was a matter of much concern with him. The nobles and the religious houses kept trim gardens, which are delineated in mediæval paintings. We know less about the state of the peasantry, but it is clear that they ploughed, sowed, reaped, and dug their little gardens, however uncertain the prospect of enjoying the produce of their labour.

      The progressive Middle Ages (about 1000 to 1500 A.D.) greatly increased the comfort of the wealthy and alleviated the miseries of the poor. We now hear of countries (England, the Low Countries, the western half of Germany, the northern half of Italy) where freemen cultivated their own land, or grew rich by trade, and these men were not content barely to support life. Under the later Plantagenets the wool-growers of that upland country which stretches from Lincolnshire to the Bristol Channel showed their wealth by building a profusion of manor-houses and beautiful perpendicular churches, many of which still remain. There can be little doubt that they were attentive to the rural industries which are so great a source of comfort and pleasure.

      

      In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Flemings, a laborious and enterprising people, inhabiting a fertile country, excelled the rest of Europe in agriculture and horticulture. L'Obel, himself a Fleming, speaks with pride of the live plants imported into Flanders from Southern Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. By the close of the sixteenth century, or a few years later, the lilac, lavender, marigold, sun-flower, tulip, and crown-imperial, the cucumber and garden rhubarb, besides many improved varieties of native vegetables, were sent out from Flanders to all parts of Western Europe. During many generations English agriculture and horticulture, and not these alone, but English ship-building, navigation, engineering, and commerce as well, looked to the Low Countries as the chief schools of invention and the chief markets from which new products were to be obtained.

Late in the sixteenth century a gentleman of the Vivarais (the modern Ardèche), named Olivier de Serres, wrote a book on the management of land,[5] which leaves a strong impression of the zeal for improvement which then pervaded Europe. De Serres was above all things intent upon extending silk-culture in France. On this topic he wrote with full knowledge, having reared silkworms for thirty-five years. The King, Henri Quatre, shared his hopes, and gave him practical encouragement. It is well known that a great industry was thus started; by 1780 the annual yield of silk-cocoons in France was valued at near a million sterling, while in 1848 it had risen to four millions. De Serres sought to promote the cultivation of the mulberry tree, not only because its leaves are the food of the silkworm, but because he believed that the fibres of the bast would be serviceable in the manufacture of cordage and cloth. He also tried to revive the ancient practice of hatching eggs by artificial heat. We learn from him that the turkey, recently introduced from Mexico, had already become an important addition to the poultry-yard, while maize from Mexico and beetroot from the Mediterranean coasts were profitable crops. Among the new appliances De Serres mentions artificial meadows, wind and water-mills, cisterns not hewn from stone, and greenhouses.

[1] Aristotle, Cesalpini, Gesner, and Ray are among the writers who use this word or some synonym.

[2] It has now been made accessible to all readers by the reprint and translation of Mr. A. H. Evans.

[3] Letter of Peter Martyr, Dec. 26, 1515.

[4] The extermination of the red man in North America is the most conspicuous case recorded in history. Australia and Tasmania furnish examples on a smaller scale.

[5] Le Théâtre d'Agriculture, 1600.

      

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