17C John Tradescant the Elder & his son John collect plants in Europe & the Americas

John Tradescant the elder (c 1570-1632) (portrait attributed to Cornelis de Neve)

John Tradescant (c 1570-1632) & his son, also named John (1608-1662), became gardeners to the nobility & royalty of England. Both traveled widely collecting botanical specimens & other rarities.

Perhaps John Tradescant the Elder, (c 1570-1632) naturalist & gardener, with his 3rd wife, Elizabeth Day

John Tradescant, the elder (d. 1638), was probably born in England, perhaps in the 1570s. He seems to have had family connections in East Anglia. English researchers record possible candidates for his parents at Corton, while his son John Tradescant (1608-1662) left legacies to "namesakes" (described by his wife as "kinsmen") at Walberswick. Both of these villages are on the Suffolk coast.

The Apricooke_ (that is booth Long and greet)

The earliest record of Tradescant's life is his marriage in 1607, at Meopham in Kent, to Elizabeth Day, daughter of the late vicar of the parish.  As Tradescant began collecting plants, John Parkinson & John Gerard became his close friends. 

the great French stra(w)bere

Tradescant's 1609 employer was Robert Cecil, 1st earl of Salisbury, at Hatfield House. In 1611, at Salisbury's behest, Tradescant traveled through the Low Countries & Flanders to Paris, buying trees, flowering shrubs, vines, & bulbs for the gardens at Hatfield. Following the death Robert Cecil in 1612, Tradescant remained in the employment of the 2nd earl, on whose behalf he again visited France. Tradescant left Hatfield in 1614, to farm for himself & to work with Edward, 1st Baron Wotton, at the former monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury.

The grene pescod plum

At Canterbury, his success in growing melons, mandrakes, & other exotics attracted admiring comments from Sir Henry Mainwaring & others. Tradescant accompanied a delegation to Tsar Michael Feodorovich, led by Sir Dudley Digges. Tradescant's diary of this "Viag of Ambusad" survives among the Ashmole manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. While the ambassadorial party set off for the imperial court, he spent 3 weeks doing fieldwork noting the characteristics of plants & other wildlife—the first such investigations recorded on Russian soil—& gathering specimens for shipment back to England. Parkinson (Paradisi, 346; Theatrum, 705) identifies white hellebores, purple cranesbill, & other plants among those brought to England on that occasion by "that worthy, curious & diligent searcher & preserver of all natures rarities & varieties, my very good friend, John Tradescante."

The grete -Early- yollow peech

Tradescant accompanied the English fleet sent in 1620–21, to quell the Barbary pirates who were proving an increasing hazard to English shipping. He collected specimens as he could on land, when circumstances permitted. Parkinson reported that Tradescant had collected on this trip the wild pomegranate "was never seene in England, before John Tradescante … brought it from parts beyond the Seas, & planted it in his Lords Garden at Canterbury."

The grete Roman Hasell Nut

In 1623, Tradescant entered the service of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, for whom he again visited the Low Countries & Flanders, buying trees & other plants. A 1625 letter written by Tradescant in Buckingham's name & addressed to Edward Nicholas, then secretary to the navy, asks sea captains, ambassadors, & overseas merchants to furnish the duke with all manner of natural & artificial curiosities. In 1625, when the duke was sent to France to provide an escort for Charles I's bride, Henrietta Maria, on her introductory journey to England, Tradescant followed in his wake with "my Lords stuff & Trunkes &c" taking the opportunity to acquire further specimens for the duke's gardens at New Hall in Essex. In 1627, he accompanied the duke again to France, when Buckingham attempted to bring relief to the besieged protestants of La Rochelle, where Buckingham's army was decimated on the Île de Ré.

The Imperyall plum

Following Buckingham's assassination in 1628, the elder Tradescant moved to South Lambeth in Surrey, where he would live for the rest of his life. Propagating unknown plants & procuring rarities grew to dominate his life.

1648 attr Thomas de Critz (British artist, 1607-1653) John Tradescant the Younger (1608–1662) as a Gardener

In Lambeth, Tradescant would plant the specimines he was collecting, establish a public museum, & raise his family, including his plant collecting son, John the younger.

An Early ripe Apple and good in taste

The younger Tradescant was fascinated by the idea of Virginia & collecting in the New World.  Tradescant the elder gave money so that in 1609, Captain Samuel Angall could find the best route to Virginia.

1652 attr Thomas de Critz (British artist, 1607-1653) John Tradescant the Younger (1608–1662) 1648-52

It is speculated that John Tradescant the younger went along on the trip & sent plants back. One plant sent back was Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana).  By 1616, he was a shareholder in the Virginia Company & paid for the transport of 24 settlers to the Virginia Colony.  This would have entitled him to buy 1,200 acres in Virginia.

The May Cherry

 John Tradescant names 40 North American plants in his garden-list of 1634. Tradescant is credited with being the first to grow the Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), Aquilegia canadensis, Aster tradescantii, Rudbeckia laciniata, Tradescantia virginica, &, possibly Robinia pseudo-acacia. Lemmon (1968:5) says that the Tradescants brought back the first lilac, gladioli, lupins, the pomegranate, the hypericum & many crocuses.

The whighte peech

Among them was the plant with which his name is most closely linked, Tradescantia virginiana, of which Parkinson wrote, "This Spider-Wort is of late knowledge, & for it the Christian world is indebted unto that painfull industrious searcher, & lover of all natures varieties, John Tradescant … who first received it of a friend, that brought it out of Virginia." (Parkinson, Paradisi, 152) 

1650s attr Thomas de Critz (British artist, 1607-1653) John Tradescant the Younger (1608–1662) with Roger Friend and a Collection of Exotic Shells

By 1634, Tradescant's own plant collection was large enough for a visitor Peter Mundy to report spending "a whole day in peruseing, & that superficially, such as hee had gathered together" (R. C. Temple, ed. The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe & Asia, 1608–1667, Hakluyt Society, ser. 2, vols. 45–6, 1919, 1–3). A description of the collection from 1638, includes the earliest mention of its most famous surviving treasure, "the robe of the King of Virginia, better known as "Powhatan's Mantle."

The Mussule plum

In 1630, he was chosen by the king as "Keeper of our gardens, Vines & Silke-wormes" at Oatlands Palace near Weybridge in Surrey, where he reportedly helped lay out a new bowling green & build a shelter for 200 orange trees. It was later destroyed by Cromwell. The Tradescants continued to amass collections of ornamental flowers & trees, most notably fruit trees, publishing a catalogue in 1634. A year before the elder Tradescant died, he was appointed custodian of the Oxford Physic Garden in 1637.

The Nuingetonn peeche

John Tradescant the younger (1608-1662) sailed to Virginia between 1628-1637, to collect plants. He settled around the area of Yorktown & Belfield, Virginia. Tradescant brought back more than 90 new plants. Among specimens the younger John brought back to their gardens at South Lambeth were American trees, like the Magnolia, Bald Cypress, & Tulip tree, plus garden flowering plants such phlox & asters. In addition to the more than 700 species of plants growing in the garden & orchard, the house itself (known as Tradescant's Ark) was a cabinet of curiosities, where father & son displayed novel items they had collected during their travels. To the original botanical collections, the Tradescants added sea shells; fossils; crystals; birds; fishes; snakes; insects; gems & coins; poisoned arrows; Henry VIII’s hawking bag & spurs; & the hand of a mermaid.

The whight Date

In 1656, John the younger published a catalogue called "Musaeum Tradescantianum" which recorded in detail the contents of the house & garden. In this 1656 catalogue, John Tradescant listed  30 or 40 more American species.  They included the red maple, the tulip tree, the swamp cypress & the occidental plane; the vines Vitis labrusca & V. vulpina; Adiantum pedatum, Anaphallis margaritacea, Lonicera sempervirens, Smilacina racemosa & Yucca filamentosa.

The portingegale Quince

The younger Tradescant bequeathed his library & museum (or some say it was swindled from him-another story) to Elias Ashmole (1617–1692). These collections were to become the core of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where the Tradescant collections remain largely intact. The collection includes these 1611-1630 fruit sketches probably made by the elder Tradescant.

The quene mother plum

Tradescant Road, off South Lambeth Road in Vauxhall, marks the former boundary of the Tradescant estate which included the botanic gardens & museum. Tradescant the elder was buried in the churchyard of St-Mary-at-Lambeth, as was his son. Part of the church is now established as the Museum of Garden History.

The Red pescod plum

19C & 20C Literature on General & American Botany

 19th & 20th Century Literature on General & American Botany

Barabé, D., ed. 1985. Colleque du centennaire du Frère Marie-Victorin. Bull. Soc. Animat. Jard. Inst. Bot., Montreal 9(3): 1-94.

Berkeley, E. and D. S. Berkeley. 1963. John Clayton, Pioneer of American Botany. Chapel Hill.

Berkeley, E. and D. S. Berkeley. 1969. Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town. Chapel Hill.

Berkeley, E. and D. S. Berkeley. 1982. The Life and Travels of John Bartram, from Lake Ontario to the River St. John. Tallahassee.

Billington, R. A. 1982. Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier, ed. 2. New York and London.

Blunt, W. and W. T. Stearn. 1971. The Compleat Naturalist: A Life of Linnaeus. London.

Carter, H. B. 1988. Sir Joseph Banks, 1743-1820. London.

Crotz, K. 1989. Ewaniana: The Writings of Joe and Nesta Ewan; with a Preface by Ian MacPhail; and Introduction by Emanuel D. Rudolph. Chillicothe, Ill.

Davis, E. B. 1987. Guide to Information Sources in the Botanical Sciences. Littleton, Colo.

Dupree, A. H. 1959. Asa Gray, 1810-1888. Cambridge, Mass.

Ewan, J. 1955. San Francisco as a mecca for nineteenth century naturalists. In: E. L. Kessel, ed. 1955. A Century of Progress in the Natural Sciences, 1853-1953. San Francisco. Pp. 1-64.

Ewan, J., ed. 1969. A Short History of Botany in the United States. New York and London.

Ewan, J. and N. Ewan. 1970. John Banister and His Natural History of Virginia 1678-1692. Urbana.

Ewan, J. and N. Ewan. 1981. Biographical Dictionary of Rocky Mountain Naturalists: A Guide to the Writings and Collections of Botanists, Zoologists, Geologists, Artists, and Photographers, 1682-1932. Utrecht etc. [Regnum Veg. 107.]

Frick, G. F. and R. P. Stearns. 1961. Mark Catesby: The Colonial Audubon. Urbana.

Goetzmann, W. H. 1966. Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West. New York.

Graustein, J. E. 1967. Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist; Explorations in America, 1808-1841. Cambridge, Mass.

Hafen, L. R., W. E. Hollon, and C. C. Rister. 1970. Western America: The Exploration, Settlement, and Development of the Region beyond the Mississippi, ed. 3. Englewood Cliffs.

Harshberger, J. W. 1899. The Botanists of Philadelphia and Their Work. Philadelphia.

Henrey, B. 1975. British Botanical and Horticultural Literature Before 1800: Comprising a History and Bibliography of Botanical and Horticultural Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland from the Earliest Times until 1800. 3 vols. London and New York.

Hultén, E. 1940. History of botanical exploration in Alaska and Yukon territories from the time of their discovery to 1940. Bot. Not. 1940: 289-346.

Humphrey, H. B. 1961. Makers of North American Botany. New York.

Lenz, L. W. 1986. Marcus E. Jones: Western Geologist, Mining Engineer & Botanist. Claremont.

Leroy, J.-F. 1957. Les Botanistes Français en Amérique du Nord avant 1850. Paris.

Mabberley, D. J. 1985. Jupiter Botanicus: Robert Brown of the British Museum. Braunschweig.

Macoun, J. 1922. Autobiography of John Macoun, M.A., Canadian Explorer and Naturalist.... With Introduction by Ernest Thompson Seton. [Ottawa.]

McKelvey, S. D. 1955. Botanical Exploration of the Trans-Mississippi West, 1790-1850. Jamaica Plain.

Reveal, J. L. 1991. Botanical explorations in the American West-1889-1989: An essay on the last century of a floristic frontier. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 78: 65-80.

Reveal, J. L. 1992. Gentle Conquest. The Botanical Discovery of North America with Illustrations from the Library of Congress. Starwood Publishing, Washington, D.C. 160 pp. [Reissued as America's Botanical Beauty by Fulcrum Press, Golden. CO, in 1996.]

Rodgers, A. D. III. 1942. John Torrey: A Story of North American Botany. Princeton and London.

Savage, H. Jr. and E. J. Savage. 1986. André and François André Michaux. Charlottesville.

Stafleu, F. A. 1971. Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of Their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789. Utrecht.

Stafleu, F. A. and R. S. Cowan. 1976-1988. Taxonomic Literature: A Selective Guide to Botanical Publications and Collections with Dates, Commentaries and Types, ed. 2. 7 vols. Utrecht, Antwerp, The Hague, and Boston.

Stafleu, F. A. and E. A. Mennega. 1992-. Taxonomic Literature: A Selective Guide to Botanical Publications and Collections with Dates, Commentaries and Types. Königstein. [4 vols. to date.]

Stearns, R. P. 1970. Science in the British Colonies of America. Urbana.

Tiehm, A. and F. A. Stafleu. 1990. Per Axel Rydberg: A biography, bibliography and list of his taxa. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 58: 1-75.

Williams, R. L. 1984. Aven Nelson of Wyoming. Boulder.

See: Taxonomic Botany and Floristics in North America... by James L. Reveal and James S. Pringle University of Maryland at College Park

Myles Standish's (1593-1656) Herbal on the Mayflower?

Myles Standish (1593 - 1656) 

In Massachusetts, Myles Standish (1593 - 1656) owned

A new herball, or, Historie of plants : wherein is contained the whole discourse & perfect description of all sorts of herbes & plants ... their names, natures, operations & vertues ... by Rembert Dodoens

Myles Standish (1593 - 3 October 1656), Mayflower passenger & commander of the Plymouth colony's militia. Served as a soldier in the Netherlands prior to the passage to America. Was the governor's assistant in Plymouth, as well as the colony's treasurer. He moved to Duxbury in the mid-1630s. Married first Rose --, who died early in 1621, & second Barbara --, with whom he had seven children.  

Standish's library is given as documented in the probate inventory of his estate, taken 8 December 1656 & presented 4 May 1657.

Jacques-Philippe Cornut (1606-1651) 1st book on North American Plants

Jacques-Philippe Cornut (1606-1651) was a French physician & botanist. He was the author of Canadensivm planatarvm, aliarúmque nondum editarum historia. Cui adiectum ad calcem Enchiridion botanicvm parisiense, continens indicem plantarum, quae in pagis, siluis, pratis, et montosis iuxta Parisios locis nascuntur (Canadian plants, & other unpublished material listing the plants that are native to the villages, the woods, the meadows, & mountains) (Paris: Simon le Moyne, 1635), Canada at that time considered as stretching from the Saint Lawrence River to Louisiana. Over the course of his career he described 541 species.

The plates of the Canadian flora are attributed to Pierre Valet (1575-1650).  Pierre Valet was a French botanical artist, engraver & embroidery designer.  French court patronage of botanical painting was initiated by Marie de Medicis of Florence, second wife of Henry IV of France. Under her tutelage Pierre Valet became the French court's first botanical painter.

Despite having compiled these Canadian flora, Jacques-Philippe Cornut never visited the New World, but received most of his plant specimens from Vespasien Robin & his father, Jean, who tended the gardens of Henry IV of France & that of the Paris Faculty of Medicine, & the Morin family, who owned a number of commercial nurseries in Paris. Cornut described & had illustrated more than 30 new species from eastern North America.  Linnaeus cited Cornut's work several times in his Species Plantarum.

Gardening Books & Almanacs in Early America

By the middle of the 17C, British American colonial gardeners were beginning to recognize that they needed books reflecting the local conditions on this side of the Atlantic. Early colonial almanacs focused on the seasonal changes, the tides, the weather, and celestial occurences used as guides for planting.

Most colonials living along the Atlantic coast believed that astrological changes had a direct affect on their gardens and crops. In 18tC Virginia, Landon Carter recorded in his diary that his field was "dry everything as Usual, and nothing has grown this whole week. Its my 3d planet that governs, and I shall not this year amount to a groat." Col. Landon Carter, I (1710-1778) was an American planter from Lancaster County, Virginia, best known for his account of colonial life leading up the American War of Independence, From 1752 to 1778 Carter kept a Diary, one of the most revealing personal documents for mid-18C Virginia.

This woodcut of a few sheep; some troubled guard dogs; a wolf carrying away a lamb; the moon & stars; and a tipsy shepherd carrying with an early bag pipe may have boosted the seasonal calendar craze. It is from the 1556 Kalender of Shepherdes. The Kalender of the Shepherdes is an archetype of the 17C farmer's almanac. The 1556 Kalender, influential in literary, religious, & social realms, was fundamentally about achieving salvation. The astrological charts & shepherd's folk wisdom about harvests, diet, & medicine were included as enticements to the religious instructional core of the work. This included the 10 commandments, the 7 deadly sins, & some of the lines of the modern Hail Mary prayer.

By 1640, almanacs published in England were exploring social, political, & religious issues and some included a bit of doggerel verse & homey advice; but the principal part of each booklet was devoted to a calendar with moon phases and planetary movements. In 1457, Johannes Gutenberg printed the first almanac; and by the 1660s in London, almanac sales averaged about 400,000 copies annually.

The first known American almanac was published in 1639, an Almanack Calculated for New England, by Capt. William Pierce, Mariner, (c 1591-1641) and was printed on the year old Harvard press by Stephen Daye. Printed in 8-16-page book form, early American almanacs usually included a title page, information on eclipses, the annual calendar, plus notes on local court days. It is considered by some to be the first bound book published in North America.

In 1646, Samuel Danforth published a 16 page almanac containing some astrological gardening information on the press in Cambridge, Massachusettes. Almanacs also appeared in New York and Philadelphia before 1700.

In 1732, Philadlephian Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) began publishing Poor Richard's Almanac and in Williamsburg, the Virginia and Maryland Almanac also began publication that year. 

A year later, Thomas Whitemarsh (d 1733), Ben Franklin's printer, printed his South Carolina Almanac in Charleston. Whitmarsh’s purchases of supplies, printed books, and almanacs are recorded in Franklin's ledgers. Whitmarsh also printed the South-Carolina Gazette from Jan. 8, 1732, to Sept. 8, 1733; and died soon afterwards.

John Tobler (1696-1765) published in Georgia and South Carolina Almanak in Savannah in 1764. Though the Tobler almanacs issued after his death in 1765 have been attributed to his son John, the publisher's preface to the South-Carolina and Georgia Almanack for 1764 (Savannah) states that Tobler's calculations had then been completed for publication up to 1800. The later almanacs contain no indication that the younger Tobler junior is the author.

All of these periodicals contained some astrological gardening instruction.

Boston almanac producer Nathaniel Ames (1708-1764) wrote in 1764, after publishing almanacs since he was a teenager in 1726, Astrology has a Philosophical Foundation: the celestial Powers that can and do agitate and move the whole Ocean, have also Force and Ability to change and alter the Fluids and Solids of the humane Body, and that which can alter and change the fluids and Solids of the Body, must also greatly affect and influence the Mind; and that which can and does affect the Mind, has a great Share and Influence in the Actions of Men. Ames' Almanack was one of the first almanacs printed in the British North American colonies. While Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac is the one more often mentioned, at the time Ames' Almanack enjoyed a much larger readership. Franklin's publication had a circulation of 10,000 copies, while Ames' Almanack had a circulation of 60,000.

In South Carolina in 1752, Martha Daniel Logan (1704-1779), a widowed mother of 8 who ran a finishing school at her plantation & sold garden seeds, compiled a more practical garden calendar reflecting the South Carolina environment, which was published in John Tobler's South Carolina Almanack and other almanacs for years to follow.  Martha's father Proprietary Governor Robert Daniel, who operated a nursery, died when she was 13. She inherited his business & plantation on the Wando River. The 1753 South Carolina Gazette carried Martha Logan's advertisement for A parcel of very good seed, flower roots, and fruit stones to be sold on the Green near Trott's Point.  After her husband George Logan Jr died, she corresponded & exchanged seeds in a "little silk bagg" with botanist John Bartram in Philadelphia. He wrote to a friend in London, "Mrs. Logan's garden is her delight." They commiserated about the problems of saving seeds & bulbs from season to season. Martha wrote Bartram: "I have lost my tulips and hyacinths, I had in a closet to dry and the mice ate them."

About 1765 in Virginia, John Randolph (1727-1784) wrote what is believed to be the earliest American book on kitchen gardening, A Treatise on Gardening by A Citizen of Virginia. John Randolph was the last King's Attorney (Attorney General) in the colony and was dubbed "John the Tory" because of his loyalist sympathies. His roots in Virginia were deep.  His father was Sir John Randolph, the only colonial Virginian to be knighted. As a young man, John Randolph was a close friend of Thomas Jefferson, his cousin, with whom he often played violin. His son Edmund became Governor of Virginia and Attorney General of the United States. John Randolph's Treatise on Gardening, modeled on the works of English nurseryman Philip Miller, was printed in America in 1788, four years after his death. Randolph's 80 page treatise on Artichokes, Asparagus, Beans, Cabbage, & had a brief calendar at the end. The information contained in John Randolph's Treatise on Gardening by a citizen of Virginia & The American Gardener rarely disguised wholesale borrowing from Philip Miller's 1831 Gardener's Dictionary.

Robert Squibb's 1787 Gardener's Kalendar of South and North Carolina was printed in Charleston following in the long tradition established more than 35 years earlier by Martha Logan. Squibb flourished as a botanist, seedsman, writer and gardener in Charleston and other parts of the South from the 1780’s, until his death in 1806 at Silk Hope Plantation near Savannah, Georgia, where he was buried. After several years as a gardener Squibb placed the following notice in the June 29, 1786 issue of the Columbian Herald in Charleston. “FROM the frequent solicitations of a number of gentlemen of this and the adjoining states, the subscriber has been induced to undertake a work, entitled, THE SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, AND NORTH CAROLINA Gardeners Calender; Which, from its general utility, he flatters himself will meet the approbation of the public at large. The English publications hitherto made use of to point out and direct the best methods of Gardening, by no means answer the purpose, as they tend to mislead instead of instruct, and suit only the European parts for which they were designed. -This work is deduced from practice and experience in this climate, wherein the most certain and simple methods are clearly pointed out, so as to render the art of gardening easy and familiar to every capacity.”

A leading agricultural figure in Pennsylvania & Maryland after the Revolution was John Beale Bordley (1721-1804). Bordley studied law & held several important colonial offices. However, his interest lay in agricultural reform; and in 1770, when he came into possession of a plantation containing 1600 acres on Wye Island on Maryland's Eastern Shore, he gave up the law entirely.  Bordley farmed this land for decades, while he experimented with new theories for native agriculture. He grew wheat instead of tobacco & experimented with crop rotation. He imported both seed & agricultural books from England. In 1785, he was a leader in forming the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture.  In 1784, Bordley published A Summary View of the Course of Crops, in the Husbandry of England and Maryland. He published his Sketches on Rotation of Crops and Other Rural Matters in 1792. His most important work was Essays and Notes on Husbandry and Rural Affairs, first published in 1799, & revised in 1801. It contained over 500 pages describing crop rotation, fruit culture, fertilizer, plantations, & farm buildings comparing English with newly developing American agricultural methods. He also wrote Gleanings from the Most Celebrated Books on Gardening and Rural Affairs published anonymously in 1803, in Philadelphia, just a year before he died.

Washington D.C. gardeners, David Hepburn and John Gardiner combined their knowledge with information lifted from English kitchen gardening books to publish The American Gardener in 1804 in the new District of Columbia.  Certainly the 1804 The American Gardener was written to promote the professional gardening careers of Gardner & Hepburn. In 1818, Joseph Milligan, at Georgetown, published a second enlarged edition of "The American Gardener, containing directions for working a kitchen garden every month in the year and instructions for the cultivation of flower gardens, vineyards, nurseries, hop yards, green houses and hot houses. To which is added a Treatise on Gardening by a citizen of Virginia."  In this edition, the publisher wrote "The recommendations with which this work came forth in the first instance to the American public were these: At a time when no work of the kind, adapted to the climate of the United States, had fallen from the American press, Mr. David Hepburn, a gardener of forty years experience— twenty in England and twenty in this country—aware of the inconvenience and frequent loss of crops sustained all over the Union, by the want of some book of methodical instructions, in company with Mr. John Gardiner, a person of skill and experience in horticulture, prepared the work in question for the press, and it was published at Washington in the year 1804 with a certificate from General J. Mason, which stated that the said Hepburn 'had been for six years employed by him on Mason's Island, Georgetown; that he had for that time conducted all the improvements at that place; that he parted with him with great regret; that he could with truth say, Hepburn was well skilled in all the branches of gardening, and that as a practical man in the culture of vegetables and fruit trees he could not be excelled. "

Immediately after the Revolution, clever European gardening entrepreneurs immigrated to America to entice the new nationals to buy their books, seeds, & services. They set about to create a market not only among the already pleasure gardening gentry, but also among the rising merchant and artisan classes as well. And they succeeded.  At the end of the century, pleasure gardening was growing. Ladies were becoming more interested in botany, decorative flowers & potted plants offered to them by the new seed and nursery dealers. Men were collecting new specimens of plants (for botanical & status reasons) imported from throughout the Americas and Europe.

The most important of the new garden entrepreneurs was Bernard M'Mahon (1775-1816), who came to Philadelphia from Ireland in 1796, to establish a seed and nursery business. "He enjoyed the friendship of Thomas Jefferson...the Lewis and Clark expedition was planned at his house...(he was) instrumental in distributing the seeds which those explorers collected." In 1806, M'Mahon wrote The American Gardener's Calendar, which was printed in 11 editions between 1806-1857. A Philadelphia newspaper called the book "a precious treasure" that "ought to occupy a place in every house in this country." M'Mahon's main motive in writing was to expand his profitable nursery enterprise. Almost all of America's earliest indigenours gardening books served as the liason between the nurseryman & an emerging middle-income group of home gardeners. An increasing leisure time & interest in the craft grew, there were not enough trained professional gardeners to go around nor the funds to employ them.  

By 1806, M'Mahon understood the proud new country well enough to appeal to guilt and national hubris in his efforts to sell his readers on the concept of pleasure gardening. In his introduction, M'Mahon lamented that America had "not yet made that rapid progress in Gardening...which might naturally be expected from an intelligent, happy and independent people, possessed so universally of landed property, unoppressed by taxation or tithes, and blest with consequent comfort and affluence."  M'Mahon concluded that one reason for this neglect was the lack of a proper reference book on American gardening, a situation which he volunteered to rectify. In 1804, his catalogue of seeds included 1,000 "species."

A contemporary wrote, "Bernard M'Mahon found American gardening in its infancy, and immediately set himself vigorously to work to introduce a love of flowers and fruit. The writer well remembers his store, his garden and greenhouses.  The latter were situated near the Germantown turnpike, between Philadelphia and Nicetown, whence emanated the rarer flowers and novelties, such as could be collected in the early part of the present century, and where were performed, to the astonishment of the amateurs of that day, successful feats of horticulture that were but too rarely imitated.  His store was on Second Street, below Market, on the east side. Many must still be alive who recollect its bulk window, ornamented with tulip glasses, a large pumpkin, and a basket or two of bulbous roots; behind the counter officiated Mrs. M'Mahon, with some considerable Irish accent, but a most amiable and excellent disposition, and withal, an able saleswoman. Mr. M'Mahon was also much in the store, putting up seeds for transmission to all parts of this country and Europe, writing his book, or attending to his correspondence, and in one corner was a shelf containing a few botanical or gardening books, for which there was then a very small demand; another contained the few garden implements, such as knives and trimming scissors, a barrel of peas and a bag of seedling potatoes, an onion receptacle, a few chairs, and the room partly lined with drawers containing seeds, constituted the apparent stock in trade of what was one of the greatest seed-stores then known in the Union, and where was transacted a considerable business for that day. Such a store would naturally attract the botanist as well as the gardener, and it was the frequent lounge of both classes, who ever found in the proprietors ready listeners, as well as conversers; in the latter particular they were rather remarkable, and here you would see Nuttall, Baldwin, Darlington, and other scientific men, who sought information or were ready to impart it."

American garden books, especially M'Mahon's, which grew in demand & popularity from 1646 through the first years of the 19C, marked the transition from America's 18th century dependence on English farming & gardening books to the widespread American agricultural publications that flowered up & down the Atlantic coast during the first decades of the 19C.

John Lawson (1674-1711) on 1709 Plant Collecting & Dying in the Carolinas

 John Lawson (1674-1711) sailed from London to the Carolinas in 1700, when he was 26 years old, after a friend told him that the Carolinas were the best part of America to visit. He set sail almost immediately arriving 1st in New York, then traveling on to the port of Charles Town, modern Charleston, in the summer of 1700. From there he began a 57 day trek that covered nearly 600 miles. 

They journeyed up the Santee River in a canoe large enough to hold 6 Englishmen, 4 Indians, & their equipment. They traveled up the Yadkin River valley to present-day North Carolina. All along the way, John Lawson recorded his observations in what became his 1709 book, A New Voyage to Carolina.

When he returned to London to publish his book, Lawson met James Petiver—an apothecary known for his vast collection of natural history specimens. Petiver asked Lawson to send him specimens of dried plants, after he returned to the New World. Petiver also supplied Lawson with apothecary & botanical materials. Lawson asked Petiver for varieties of grape vines & stone fruits to take back to North Carolina, as well as information on making wine & distilling spirits. 

Lawson sailed back to North Carolina in the spring of 1710, & began fulfilling his promise to Petiver. He sent packets of dried plants to him in 1710 & 1711. The plants usually reached London some 3 months after being shipped out of Norfolk, Virginia. These dried plants eventually found their way to the Natural History Museum (British Museum), where they can be viewed today. Lawson began collecting plants even as he led colonists south toward New Bern. On May 10, 1710, he collected a huckleberry & wrote this note: “The largest huckleberry... green berries on the stem... we’ve gotten in Norfolk County in Virginia.” 

The winter of 1711, Lawson left New Bern during the last week of January. On January 29 he recorded collecting a “spontaneous of Carolina growing on a Fork of Neus River & in other places... had from flowers, like drops of blood a few... sweet herb.” Two days later, he stopped at William Hancock’s “on the south side on Neus Rv.” There, he collected specimens of American olive, which he described as “a pritty tree growing on a sandy point by the water side.” He founded 2 settlements in North Carolina: Bath & New Bern, both at the coast. 

In September 1711, Lawson & his associate Christopher von Graffenried were captured by Tuscarora Indians while ascending the Neuse River. The Tuscarora released von Graffenried, but they subjected Lawson to ritual torture, typical of warriors, & killed him. Shortly thereafter, tensions between the Tuscarora & their allies & settlers erupted into a bloody conflict known as the Tuscarora War, lasting until the defeat of the Tuscarora in 1715. The colonists gathered their own American Indian allies, especially from among the Yamasee & Cherokee, traditional enemies & competitors of the Tuscarora.

The plants Lawson gathered during this trip were sent to England from Virginia in July. Lawson’s last letter to Petiver was written in July 1711 from Virginia. Petiver got the letter in London on October 20, 1711, almost exactly a month after Lawson’s death.

A New Voyage to Carolina; Containing the Exact Description and Natural History of That Country: Together with the Present State Thereof. And A Journal of a Thousand Miles, Travel'd Thro' Several Nations of Indians. Giving a Particular Account of Their Customs, Manners, &c. by John Lawson 1709

Of the Corn of Carolina.

        Wheat.
THE Wheat of this Place is very good, seldom yielding less than thirty fold, provided the Land is good where it is sown; Not but that there has been Sixty-six Increase for one measure sown in Piny-Land, which we account the meanest Sort. And I have been inform'd, by People of Credit, that Wheat which was planted in a very rich Piece of Land, brought a hundred and odd Pecks, for one. If our Planters, when they found such great Increase, would be so curious as to make nice Observations of the Soil, and other remarkable. Accidents, they would soon be acquainted with the Nature of the Earth and Climate, and be better qualified to manage their Agriculture to more Certainty, and greater Anvantage; whereby they might arrive to the Crops and Harvests of Babylon, and those other fruitful Countries so much talk'd of. For I must confess, I never saw one Acre of Land manag'd as it ought to be in Carolina, since I knew it; and were they as negligent in their Husbandry in Europe, as they are in Carolina, their Land would produce nothing but Weeds and Straw.

        Rye.
 They have try'd Rye, and it thrives very well; but having such Plenty of Maiz, they do not regard it, because it makes black Bread, unless very curiously handled.

        Barley.
 Barley has been sowed in small quantities, and does better than can be expected; because that Grain requires the Ground to be very well work'd with repeated Ploughings, which our general Way of breaking the Earth with Hoes, can, by no means, perform, tho' in several Places we have a light, rich, deep, black Mould, which is the particular Soil in which Barley best thrives.

        Oats.
The naked Oats thrive extraordinary well; and the other would prove a very bold Grain; but the Plenty of other Grains makes them not much coveted.

        Maiz.
 The Indian Corn, or Maiz, proves the most useful Grain in the World; and had it not been for the Fruitfulness of this Species, it would have proved very difficult to have settled some of the Plantations in America. It is very nourishing, whether in Bread, sodden, or otherwise; And those poor Christian Servants in Virginia, Maryland, and the other northerly Plantations, that have been forced to live wholly upon it, do manifestly prove, that it is the most nourishing Grain, for a Man to subsist on, without any other Victuals. And this Assertion is made good by the Negro-Slaves, who, in many Places, eat nothing but this Indian Corn and Salt. Pigs and Poultry fed with this Grain, eat the sweetest of all others. It refuses no Grounds, unless the barren Sands, and when planted in good Ground, will repay the Planter seven or eight hundred fold; besides the Stalks bruis'd and boil'd, make very pleasant Beer, being sweet like the Sugar-Cane.

        Rice.
There are several sorts of Rice, some bearded, others not, besides the red and white; But the white Rice is the best. Yet there is a sort of persum'd Rice in the East-Indies, which gives a curious Flavour, in the Dressing. And with this sort America is not yet acquainted; neither can I learn, that any of it has been brought over to Europe; the Rice of Carolina being esteem'd the best that comes to that Quarter of the World. It is of great Increase, yielding from eight hundred to a thousand-fold, and thrives best in wild Land, that has never been broken up before.

        Buck-Wheat.        Guinea-Wheat.
Buck-Wheat is of great Increase in Carolina; but we make no other use of it, than instead of Maiz, to feed Hogs and Poultry : And Guinea Corn, which thrives well here, serves for the same use.

        Pulse. Busshel-Bean.
Of the Pulse-kind, we have many sorts. The first is the Bushel-Bean, which is a spontaneous Product. They are so called, because they bring a Bushel of Beans for one that is planted. They are set in the Spring, round Arbours, or at the Feet of Poles, up which they will climb, and cover the Wattling, making a very pretty Shade to fit under. They continue flowering, budding, and ripening all the Summer long, till the Frost approaches, when they forbear their Fruit, and die. The Stalks they grow on, come to the Thickness of a Man's Thumb; and the Bean is white and mottled, with a purple Figure on each side it, like an Ear. They are very flat, and are eaten as the Windsor-Bean is, being an extraordinary well-relish'd Pulse, either by themselves, or with Meat.

        Indian Rouncevals.

        Pease and Beans.
We have the Indian Rounceval, or Miraculous Pease, so call'd from their long Pods, and great Increase. These are latter Pease, and require a pretty long Summer to ripen in. They are very good; and so are the Bonavis, Calavancies, Nanticokes, and abundance of other Pulse, too tedious here to name, which we found the Indians possess'd of, when first we settled in America; some of which sorts afford us two Crops in one Year; as the Bonavis and Calavancies, besides several others of that kind.

        Eng. Bean.
Now I am launch'd into a Discourse of the Pulse, I must acquaint you, that the European Bean planted here, will, in time, degenerate into a dwarfish sort, if not prevented by a yearly Supply of foreign Seed, and an extravagant rich Soil; yet these Pigmy-Beans are the sweetest of that kind I ever met withal.

        Pease.
 As for all the sorts of English Pease that we have yet made tryal of, they thrive very well in Carolina. Particularly, the white and gray Rouncival, the common Field-Pease, and Sickle-Pease yield very well, and are of a good Relish. As for the other sorts, I have not seen any made tryal of as yet, but question not their coming to great Perfection with us.

        Kidney-Bean.
The Kidney-Beans were here before the English came, being very plentiful in the Indian Corn-Fields.

        Roots.
The Garden-Roots that thrive well in Carolina, are Carrots, Leeks, Parsnips, Turneps, Potatoes, of several delicate sorts, Ground Artichokes, Radishes, Horse-Radish, Beet, both sorts, Onions, Shallot, Garlick, Cives, and the Wild-Onions.

        Sallads.
The Sallads are the Lettice, Curl'd, Red, Cabbage, and Savoy. The Spinage round and prickly, Fennel, sweet and the common Sort, Samphire in the Marshes excellent, so is the Dock or Wild-Rhubarb, Rocket, Sorrel, French and English, Cresses of several Sorts, Purslain wild, and that of a larger Size which grows in the Gardens; for this Plant is never met withal in the Indian Plantations, and is, therefore, suppos'd to proceed from Cow-Dung, which Beast they keep not. Parsley two Sorts; Asparagus thrives to a Miracle, without hot Beds or dunging the Land, White-Cabbage from European or New-England Seed, for the People are negligent and unskilful, and don't take care to provide Seed of their own. The Colly-Flower we have not yet had an Opportunity to make Tryal of, nor has the Artichoke ever appear'd amongst us, that I can learn. Coleworts plain and curl'd, Savoys; besides the Water-Melons of several Sorts, very good; which should have gone amongst the Fruits. Of Musk-Melons we have very large and good, and several Sorts, as the Golden, Green, Guinea, and Orange. Cucumbers long, short, and prickly, all these from the Natural Ground, and great Increase, without any Helps of Dung or Reflection. Pompions yellow and very large, Burmillions, Cashaws, an excellent Fruit boil'd; Squashes, Simnals, Horns, and Gourds; besides many other Species, of less Value, too tedious to name.

Fruits & Nuts

Exotick Fruits we have, that thrive well in Carolina; and what others, it may reasonably be suppos'd, would do there, were they brought thither and planted. In pursuance of which, I will set down a Catalogue of what Fruits we have; I mean Species: For should I pretend to give a regular Name to every one; it's neither possible for me to do it, nor for any one to understand it, when done; if we consider, that the chiefest part of our Fruit came from the Kernel, and some others from the Succours, or Sprouts of the Tree. First, we will begin with Apples; which are the

Golden Russet.

Pearmain Winter. Summer.

Harvey-Apple, I cannot tell, whether the same as in England.

Winter Queening.

Leather Coat.

Juniting.

Codlin.

Redstreak.

Long-stalk.

Lady-Finger.

        The Golden Russet thrives well.

        The Pearmains, of both sorts, are apt to speck, and rot on the Trees; and the Trees are damaged and cut off by the Worm, which breeds in the Forks, and other parts thereof; and often makes a Circumposition, by destroying the Bark round the Branches, till it dies.

        Harvey-Apple; that which we call so, is esteem'd very good to make Cider of.

        Winter Queening is a durable Apple, and makes good Cider.

        Leather-Coat; both Apple and Tree stand well.

        The Juniting is early ripe, and soon gone, in these warm Countries.

        Codlin; no better, and fairer Fruit in the World; yet the Tree suffers the same Distemper, as the Pearmains, or rather worse; the Trees always dying before they come to their Growth.

        The Redstreak thrives very well.

        Long-stalk is a large Apple, with a long Stalk, and makes good Summer Cider.

        We beat the first of our Codlin Cider, against reaping our Wheat, which is from the tenth of June, to the five and twentieth.

        Lady-Finger, the long Apple, the same as in England, and full as good. We have innumerable sorts; some call'd Rope-Apples which are small Apples, hanging like Ropes of Onions; Flattings, Grigsons, Cheese-Apples, and a great number of Names, given according to every ones Discretion.

        Pears.

        The Warden-Pear here proves a good eating Pear; and is not so long ripening as in England.

        Katharine excellent.

        Sugar-pear.

        And several others without Name, The Bergamot we have not, nor either of the Bonne Chrestiennes, though I hear, they are all three in Virginia. Those sorts of Pears which we have, are as well relisht, as ever I eat any where; but that Fruit is of very short Continuance with us, for they are gone almost as soon as ripe.

        Quinces.

        I am not a Judge of the different sorts of Quinces, which they call Brunswick, Portugal, and Barbary; But as to the Fruit, in general, I believe no Place has fairer and better relisht. They are very pleasant eaten raw. Of this Fruit, they make a Wine, or Liquor, which they call Quince-Drink, and which I approve of beyond any Drink which that Country affords, though a great deal of Cider and some Perry is there made. The Quince-Drink most commonly purges those that first drink it, and cleanses the Body very well. The Argument of the Physicians, that they bind People, is hereby contradicted, unless we allow the Quinces to differ in the two Countries. The least Slip of this Tree stuck in the Ground, comes to bear in three years.

        Peaches.

 All Peaches, with us, are standing; neither have we any Wall-Fruit in Carolina; for we have Heat enough, and therefore do not require it. We have a great many sorts of this Fruit, which all thrive to Admiration, Peach-Trees coming to Perfection (with us) as easily as the Weeds. A Peach falling on the Ground, brings a Peach-Tree that shall bear in three years, or sometimes sooner. Eating Peaches in our Orchards makes them come up so thick from the Kernel, that we are forced to take a great deal of Care to weed them out; otherwise they make our Land a Wilderness of Peach-Trees.

They generally bear so full, that they break great part of their Limbs down. We have likewise very fair Nectarines, especially the red, that clings to the Stone, the other yellow Fruit, that leaves the Stone; of the last, I have a Tree, that, most Years, brings me fifteen or twenty Bushels. I see no Foreign Fruit like this, for thriving in all sorts of Land, and bearing its Fruit to Admiration. I want to be satisfy'd about one sort of this Fruit, which the Indians claim as their own, and affirm, they had it growing amongst them, before any Europeans came to America. The Fruit I will describe, as exactly as I can. The Tree grows very large, most commonly as big as a handsome Apple-tree; the Flowers are of a reddish, murrey Colour; the Fruit is rather more downy, than the yellow Peach, and commonly very large and soft, being very full of Juice. They part freely from the Stone, and the Stone is much thicker than all the other Peach Stones we have, which seems to me, that it is a Spontaneous Fruit of America; yet in those Parts of America that we inhabit, I never could hear that any Peach-Trees were ever found growing in the Woods; neither have the foreign Indians, that live remote from the English, any other sort. And those living amongst us have a hundred of this sort for one other; they are a hardy Fruit, and are seldom damaged by the North-East Blasts, as others are. Of this sort we make Vinegar; wherefore we call them Vinegar-Peaches, and sometimes Indian-Peaches.

        Apricock.

This Tree grows to a vast Bigness, exceeding most Apple-Trees. They bear well, tho' sometimes an early Spring comes on in February, and perhaps, when the Tree is fully blown the Cloudy North-East-Winds which attend the end of, that Month, or the beginning of March, destroy most of the Fruit. The biggest Apricock-Tree I ever saw, as they told me, was grafted on a Peach-Stock, in the Ground. I know of no other sort with us, than the Common. We generally raise this Fruit from the Stone, which never fails to bring the same Fruit. Likewise our Peach-Stones effect the same, without so much as once missing, to produce the same sort that the Stone came from.

 Damson, Damazeen, and a large round black Plum are all I have met withal in Carolina. They thrive well enough; the last to Admiration, and becomes a very large Tree, if in stiff Ground; otherwise they will not do well.

        Figs.

 Of Figs we have two sorts; One is the low Bush-Fig, which bears a large Fruit. If the Winter happens to have much Frost, the tops thereof die, and in the Spring sprout again, and bear two or three good Crops.

The Tree-Fig is a lesser Fig, though very sweet. The Tree grows to a large Body and Shade, and generally brings a good Burden; especially, if in light Land. This Tree thrives no where better, than on the Sand-Banks by the Sea.

        Cherries.

We have the common red and black Cherry, which bear well. I never saw any grafted in this Country, the common excepted, which was grafted on an Indian Plum-stock, and bore well. This is a good way, because our common Cherry-Trees are very apt to put Scions all round the Tree, for a great Distance, which must needs be prejudicial to the Tree and Fruit. Not only our Cherries are apt to do so, but our Apples and most other Fruit-Trees, which may chiefly be imputed to the Negligence and Unskilfulness of the Gardener. Our Cherries are ripe a Month sooner than in Virginia.

        Goosberry.

Goosberries I have seen of the smaller sort, but find they do not do so well as in England, and to the Northward. Want of Dressing may be some Reason for this.

        Currants.

Currants, White, Red, and Black, thrive here, as well as any where.

        Rasps.

Rasberries, the red and white, I never saw any Trial made of. But there is no doubt of their thriving to Admiration, since those of the Country do so well.

        Mulberry.

The Mulberries are spontaneous. We have no others, than what I have already mentioned in the Class of Natural Fruits of Carolina.

        Barberry.

Barberry red, with Stones, and without Stones, grow here.

        Strawberry.

 Strawberries, not Foreign, but those of the Country, grow here in great Plenty. Last April I planted a Bed of two hunded Foot in Length, which bore the same Year.

        Medlar.

 Medlars we have none.

        Walnut.

All sorts of Walnuts from England, France, and Maderas, thrive well from the Nut.

        Filbert.

No Filberts, but Hazle-Nuts; the Filbert-Nut planted, becomes a good Hazle-Nut, and no better.

        Vines.

As for that noble Vegetable the Vine, without doubt, it may (in this Country) be improved, and brought to the fame Perfection, as it is, at this Day, in the fame Latitude in Europe, since the chiefest part of this Country is a deep, rich, black Mould, which is up towards the Freshes and Heads of our Rivers, being very rich and mix'd with Flint, Pebbles, and other Stones. And this sort of Soil is approv'd of (by all knowing Gardeners and Vigneroons) as a proper Earth, in which the Grape chiefly delights; and what seems to give a farther Confirmation hereof, is, that the largest Vines, that were every discover'd to grow wild, are found in those Parts, oftentimes in such Plenty, and are so interwoven with one another, that 'tis impossible to pass through them. Moreover, in these Freshes, towards the Hills, the Vines are above five times bigger than those generally with us, who are seated in the Front-parts of this Country, adjoining to the Salts. Of the wild Vines, which are most of them great Bearers, some Wine has been made, which I drank of. It was very strong and well relisht; but what detains them all from offering at great quantities, they add, that this Grape has a large Stone, and a thick Skin, and consequently yields but a small Quantity of Wine. Some Essays of this Nature have been made by that Honourable Knight, Sir Nathanael Johnson, in South Carolina, who, as I am inform'd, has rejected all Exotick Vines, and makes his Wine from the natural black Grape of Carolina, by grafting it upon its own Stock. What Improvement this may arrive to, I cannot tell; but in other Species, I own Grafting and Imbudding yields speedy Fruit, tho' I never found that it made them better.

 New planted Colonies are generally attended with a Force and Necessity of Planting the known and approved Staple and Product of the Country, as well as all the Provisions their Families spend. Therefore we can entertain but small hopes of the Improvement of the Vine, till some skilful in dressing Vines shall appear amongst us, and go about it, with a Resolution, that Ordering the Vineyard shall be one half of their Employment. If this be begun and carried on, with that Assiduity and Resolution which it requires, then we may reasonably hope to see this a Wine-Country; for then, when it becomes a general Undertaking, every one will be capable to add something to the common Stock, of that which he has gain'd by his own Experience. This way would soon make the Burden light, and a great many short and exacter Curiosities, and real Truths would be found out in a short time. The trimming of Vines, as they do in France, that is, to a Stump, must either here be not follow'd, or we are not sensible of the exact time, when they ought to be thus pruned; for Experience has taught us, that the European Grape, suffer'd to run and expand itself at large, has been found to bear as well in America, as it does in Europe; when, at the same time, the same sort of Vine trimm'd to a Stump, as before spoken of, has born a poor Crop for one Year or two; and by its spilling, after cutting, emaciated, and in three or four Years, died. This Experiment, I believe, has never fail'd; for I have trimm'd the natural Vine the French way, which has been attended, at last, with the same Fate. Wherefore, it seems most expedient, to leave the Vines more Branches here, than in Europe, or let them run up Trees, as some do, in Lombardy, upon Elms. The Mulberries and Chinkapin are tough, and trimm'd to what you please, therefore fit Supporters of the Vines. Gelding and plucking away the Leaves, to hasten the ripening of this Fruit, may not be unnecessary, yet we see the natural wild Grape generally ripens in the Shade. Nature in this, and many others, may prove a sure Guide. The Twisting of the Stems to make the Grapes ripe together, loses no Juice, and may be beneficial, if done in Season. A very ingenious French Gentleman, and another from Switzerland, with whom I frequently converse, exclaim against that strict cutting of Vines, the generally approved Method of France and Germany, and say, that they were both out in their Judgment, till of late, Experience has taught them otherwise. Moreover, the French in North Carolina assure me, that if we should trim our Apple and other Fruit-Trees, as they do in Europe, we should spoil them. As for Apples and Plums, I have found by Experience, what they affirm to be true. The French, from the Mannakin Town on the Freshes of James River in Virginia, had, for the most part, removed themselves to Carolina, to live there, before I came away; and the rest were following, as their Minister, (Monsieur Philip de Rixbourg) told me, who was at Bath-Town, when I was taking my leave of my Friends. He assur'd me, that their Intent was to propagate Vines, as far as their present Circumstances would permit; provided they could get any Slips of Vines, that would do. At the same time, I had gotten some Grape-Seed, which was of the Jesuits white Grape from Madera. The Seed came up very plentifully, and, I hope, will not degenerate, which if it happens not to do, the Seed may prove the best way to raise a Vineyard, as certainly it is most easy for Transportation. Yet I reckon we should have our Seed from a Country, where the Grape arrives to the utmost Perfection of Ripeness. 

Chelsea Physic Garden & Philip Miller(1691–1771), Linnaeus(1707-1778)

19th Century view of London's Chelsea Physic Garden from the south showing the famous cedars of Lebanon planted here in 1683. They were among the first to be planted in England.

The practical English gardener, author, and experimental horticulturalist Philip Miller (1691–1771) was the curator of Chelsea Physic Garden. Miller learned his profession in the paternalistic pattern so familiar in the 18th century. He worked in his father's market garden before becoming a florist in Pimlico. On leaving school young Miller assisted his father but soon went on his own as a florist, garden planner, and nurseryman specializing in ornamental shrubs. Hans Sloan noticed his work, and he soon was asked to assist the foreman of the botanic garden at Chelsea. In 1722, Miller was appointed curator of the Physic Garden of the London Apothecaries at Chelsea, where he served for 48 years.

The Chelsea garden under his direction attained an international reputation boosted by his various publications, especially The Gardeners Dictionary. Carl von Linne (Linnaeus) 1707-1778 the great Swedish botanist made several visits to the Physic Garden in the 1730s, meeting with the garden's curator Philip Miller.

Miller's Dictionary went into 8 updated editions to 1768 , with the 7th edition of 1756 including the new nomenclature details of Linnaeus; it was translated into several European languages.

Because he became so well known, Miller received propagation material from around the world and his practical and experimental work earned him an unparalleled horticultural reputation. He became famous throughout Europe for all of the plants sent from North America, which he grew at the garden. He redistributed many of his horticultural successes throughout Europe and America. Miller remained at the Physic Garden, until he was nearly 80, finally retiring on 6 February 1771 .

Chelsea Physic Garden still exists today as one of Britain's oldest botanical gardens, a unique piece of living history with a collection of more than 5,000 medicinal and unusual plants. Over 30,000 people visit the 4 acre site each year.

The first physic garden was established in Italy in 1543, and the Chelsea Physic Garden was planted in London in 1673. Only the physic garden in Oxford preceded it in England. The 4 acre Chelsea site sat on the banks of the River Thames.

The Chelsea Physic Garden was founded as the Apothecaries' Garden, with the purpose of training apprentices in identifying plants. The location was chosen as the proximity to the river created a warmer microclimate allowing the survival of many non-native plants during harsh British winters. The river was also important as a transportation route facilitating easy movements of both plants and botanists.

In 1722, Dr. Hans Sloane, Lord of the Manor, after whom the nearby locations of Sloane Square and Sloane Street were named, purchased the Manor of Chelsea from Charles Cheyne. This purchase of about 4 acres was leased to the Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year in perpetuity. That amount is still paid each year to the heirs of that owner, Dr. Hans Sloane.

I know this blog is about American gardens, but I just can't resist including photos of the Chelsea garden which had so much influence on colonial gardens. The lovely little garden, which sits smack in the middle of busy London, is a beautiful, fragrant retreat from the near frantic bustle of the 21st century clattering around it.
19th Century Map of London showing Chelsea Physic Garden.
21st Century photo of Chelsea Physic Garden in London
21st Century photo of Chelsea Physic Garden in London
21st Century photo of Chelsea Physic Garden in London
21st Century photo of Chelsea Physic Garden in London
21st Century photo of Chelsea Physic Garden in London
21st Century photo of Chelsea Physic Garden in London.

Botany Books & Herbals owned in Early America - Lady Jean Skipwith's (1748-1826)

Lady Jean Skipwith (1748-1826) of Virginia owned:

Elements of botany; or, Outlines of the natural history of vegetables by Benjamin Smith Barton

The gardeners dictionary containing the best & newest methods of cultivating & improving the kitchen, fruit, flower garden, & nursery; ... The eighth edition, revised & altered according to the latest system of botany by Philip Miller

The Botanist's calendar, & pocket flora : arranged according to the Linnæan system. To which are added references to the best figures of British plants

Lady Jean Skipwith's library is one of the very few known southern women's libraries from the colonial period, and is certainly the largest collection assembled by a Virginia woman.  Although little is known of Jean Skipwith's education, her passion for books is obvious. Numerous invoices, lists and inventories, most contained in the Skipwith Family Papers in the library of the College of William and Mary, have allowed the library to be outlined in great detail. A bibliography of the collection can be found in Mildred K. Abraham, "The Library of Lady Jean Skipwith: A Book Collection from the Age of Jefferson." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 91:3 (July, 1983), pp. 296-347.

Lady Jean Skipwith was born Jane Miller; her father Hugh Miller was a Scottish tobacco merchant who lived in Virginia from 1746 to 1760, and her mother Jane was a member of the well-known Bolling family.  Following his wife's death, Hugh Miller returned to Glasgow with his five young children; he died there in 1762. Jean (she had changed her name) lived in Scotland until around 1786, then moved briefly to Liverpool before returning to the Elm Hill plantation in Virginia which had been inherited from her father. 

In 1788, Jean married Sir Peyton Skipwith of Mecklenburg County, VA (1740-1805). Skipwith, one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, had previously been married to Jean's sister Anne (1742/3-1779).  Lady Jean gave birth to four children in five years (all after the age of forty), and by 1797 had moved her family from Elm Hill to her husband's new plantation, Prestwould, which still stands. Detailed records of household purchases and garden notes (not to mention her library records) reveal Lady Jean's wide-ranging interests and occupations.  Following her husband's death in 1805, Lady Jean remained at Prestwould until she died in 1826, aged 78.

Matthaeus Silvaticus (c1280-c1342) Early Botanica Garden at Salerno

Salerno is an ancient city in southwestern Italy located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Human settlement at Salerno dates back to pre-historic times. The site has been one of the most important & strategic ports on the Mediterranean sea, with a rich Greco-Roman heritage. It was an independent Lombard principality in the early Middle Ages. During this time, the Schola Medica Salernitana, the 1st medical school in the Europe, was founded. 

Salerno’s Minerva Garden: a Hidden Trove of Therapeutic Treasures

Posted on January 24, 2015 

While many have heard of the botanical gardens built during the Italian Renaissance period in northern Italy towns such as Padua and Pisa, a small & less well-known medicinal garden in Salerno actually predates them. 

The Minerva Garden in this southern Italian town traces its roots back to the 14C, when the medical writer & botanist Matthaeus Silvaticus decided to set up a small garden of simple medicine, attached to Salerno’s medical school, Europe’s oldest. 

Silvaticus used the garden for experimental & educational purposes, and mentions it in his 650-page encyclopedia about medicating agents, Pandectarum Medicinae, completed around 1317. In Chapter 196 on the large-leaved Colocasia plant, he says “and I have it in my garden in Salerno, near a sizeable spring.”

The area on which the modern garden stands has been identified as the garden referred to by Silvaticus. The layout visitors see today is a restoration based on its appearance in the 17-18C when it was part of a noble residence, & includes several different levels. An interesting feature is its complex network of waterways, fountains & springs

In the central garden on the first level, the plants are divided into sections reflecting the “four elements”: Air, Earth, Fire & Water, which formed the basis of the “humors theory” developed by Greek physician Galen, who lived between 129-216 AD. The mix of pairs of elements form the four fundamental bodily qualities: hot, cold, dry & wet.

In the human body, the four elements are represented in the four humors of the organism: blood (air), yellow bile (fire), phlegm (water) & black bile (earth). Here’s a chart:

The theory, which Medieval therapeutic principles in Salerno were based on, supposes that the prevalence of one of the humors in an individual decides one of four personality types: the Sanguine (optimistic, leader-like, lovers of food) who are associated with the Air element & blood,  the Choleric (thin, frail, bad-tempered) who are linked to Fire & yellow bile, the Phlegmatic (fat, sluggish, lazy & unintelligent), connected to Water & phlegm, & the Melancholic (analytical, quiet & sad), tied with Earth & black bile.

Based on this system, the human body is governed by the four humors & any imbalances in them creates pathological states. Illness, viewed as the excess of one humor over others, can be corrected by a medicine that is opposite to the nature of the overbearing humor. For this reason, plants are classified with the same criteria used for studying human humors. So some plants are hot & wet, some are dry & cold etc.

The grounds of the garden are marked to show which herbal sections help for ailments related to the various humors & their corresponding elements, here we have water & earth & the quality of their pair in the middle: cold.

Here is Aloe Vera, planted in the section between “Hot” & “Dry”

You can wander up the steps to subsequent levels, where you pass more springs, waterways & lemon tree groves among the many types of therapeutic plants:

The lower garden is full of orange trees & there is a pond-like water feature with overgrowing plants on one side:

Clara Peeters (1594-1657) Plant Still-Lifes

1594 Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

Clara Peeters (1594-c 1657) was not painting portraits as were most women painters born in the 1400-1500s.  She chose still-life painting.  Flemish Clara Peeters was painting still lifes as early as the 1st decade of the 17th century. She was baptized in Antwerp in 1594, & married there in 1639. Her earliest dated paintings, from 1607-1608, are small, detailed images representing food & drink. At the time that Clara Peeters was painting religious imagery was forbidden in the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church.  Artistic conventions were developed to make coded references to life, death, & religion, so her paintings conveyed a meaning to her patrons of much more than objects in a still life. Each painting would be a visual puzzle to be decoded by the viewer.  It is speculated that the skill with which this teenage artist executed her painting suggests that she may have been trained by a master painter. Although there is no documentary evidence of her education, scholars theorize that Peeters may have been a student of Osias Beert, a still-life painter from Antwerp.  By 1612, the 18-year-old artist was producing large numbers of painstakingly rendered still lifes displaying symbols in groupings of metal goblets, gold coins, & exotic flowers.

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-a 1657) Early 1607 Still Life In this 1607 still life, Clara chose a high vantage point, so that the viewer looks down on the objects. In the early 1600s this was also the perspective chosen by other Northern Netherlandish painters such as Floris van Schooten (died after 1655) & Floris van Dijck (1575-1651).

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-a 1657) Flowers in a Stoneware Vase

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-a 1657) Still Life

Cristóvão da Costa (c 1525-94) Portuguese Physician & Botanist

Cristóvão da Costa or Cristóbal Acosta & Latinized as Christophorus Acosta Africanus (c 1525-94) was a Portuguese doctor, botanist & natural historian. He is considered a pioneer in the study of plants from the Orient, especially their use in pharmacology. He published a book on the medicinal plants of the orient titled Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de la Indias Orientales in 1578.  

Cristóvão da Costa is believed to have been born somewhere in Africa, possibly in Tangier, Ceuta, both Portuguese cities at the time, or in Portuguese Cape Verde, since in his work he claims to be African (Christophorus Acosta Africanus). Reportedly, he was born into a family which converted from the Jewish religion to Catholicism.  He went to the East Indies before 1550 as a soldier, visiting Persia, India, Malaya, & perhaps China.  At at one point, he was taken prisoner & held captive in Bengal.

After returning to Portugal, he joined his former captain, Luís de Ataíde, who had been appointed viceroy of Portuguese India. He returned to Goa in 1568. He served as personal physician to the viceroy; & in 1569, he was appointed physician to the royal hospital in Cochin, treating the king of Cochin.  By 1571, he was collecting botanical specimens in various parts of India. 

When Ataide ended his term in 1572, Acosta returned to Lisbon with him. He practiced medicine in Burgos, 1576-87. He was the contracted surgeon & then the contracted physician to the city, both positions were well-salaried. After the death of his wife (c 1587), he retired to a hermitage.

Title page from Spanish edition of Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales,  At Burgos in 1578, he published (in Spanish) his work Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias orientales ("Treatise of the drugs & medicines of the East Indies"). In publication, he says he was brought to India by his desire to find "in several regions & provinces learned & curious men from whom I could daily learn something new; & to see the diversity of plants God has created for human health."

Pineapple from Tractado de las drogas, y medicinas de las Indias Orientales, Burgos 1578

Acosta was one of the pioneers in studying the plants, especially in their pharmaceutical uses, of the orient. His Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias orientales contains systematic, first-hand observations on oriental drugs. His work on drugs widely translated. 

See:

Harry Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1944), Essay XXXI.  

Jacob Seidi, "The Relationship of Garcia de Orta's and Cristobal Acosta's Botanical Works," Actes du VIIe Congress International d'Histoire des Sciences, (Paris, 1955).