Our readers may know that the most ancient English work on gardening that has come down to our day is Gerard's Herbal. The copy on the Editor's table is a large octavo of 1630 pages, printed in 1636, which is the third edition, it having reached this in thirty-nine years from the date of the first issue. Pulteny, in his sketches, tells us that the work gained great repute, and the third edition, for some reason or other, is scarcely ever seen; hence the Editor's copy holds a choice place in his library. It is bound in solid leather, as if it might last for a thousand years yet. Thomas Johnson was the Editor of this edition, Gerard having died in 1607. Johnson was regarded as the best botanist of his day. He was killed in the Cromwellian wars, or rather died from a wound in the shoulder in 1644, while attempting with others the relief of Baring House. Mark Catesby, of South Carolina, named the Callicarpa in his honor, Johnsonia Americana, in 1739, as Plumier had named the Gerardia for the author of the work, but for some reason Linnaeus dropped the generic name and made it Callicarpa Americana instead.

It is to be regretted that no plant now commemorates the name of this very able man.

We have been led to these recollections by a notice of Gerard in the London Spectator. He was a Cheshire physician, but for twenty years superintendent of the gardens of Sir Wm. Cecil, the Lord High Treasurer, at what is now known as The Strand, having his own garden in Holborn. Lord Cecil probably bore part of the great expense that must have been involved by the publication of the ponderous work. Of his history the Spectator notes:

"We now come to the second point, the notices of flowers introduced into English gardens in Gerard's time, and as we read those words which so continually conclude the paragraph headed 'The Place,' 'this plant grows also in my garden,' we wonder what must the dimensions of his herbarium have been! Here is the history of our queenly White Lily, it is 'called Lilium album Bizantinum, in English the White Lillie of Constantinople; of the Turkes themselves, Sultan Zambach, with this addition, that it might be the better knowen which kinde of Lillie they ment, when they sent rootes of them vnto these countries.' The variety of lilies then known surprises us; many came to Gerard through his 'louing friend, master James Garret, apothecarie in London.' To the Turks, also, we owe the Crown Imperial, and that gorgeous denizen of our gardens, the Red Lily. 'This plant groweth wilde in the fieldes and mountaines many daies iournies beyonde Constantinople. From thence it was sent, among many other bulbs of rare and daintie flowers, by Master Habran, ambassador there, vnto my honorable good lord and master, the Lord Treasurer of England, who bestowed it vpon me for my garden.' The Day Lily, the Red Gladiolus, or Corn flag, the Frittillary (called also by Gerard 'The Ginnie-hen flower') were all known to him, while the varieties of daffodils, squills, hyacinths, and anemones are wonderful to read of. ' The double white daffodill' was sent to Lord Burghley from Constantinople; other bulbous plants came from the 'lowe Countries, as also from France.' The 'rush-daffodill' (rush-leaved jonquil?) grew 'wilde in the waterie places of Spaine.' From three kinds of tulips we learn that 'all other kinds do proceed,' tulips being then the peculiar study of Master James Garret, who had, by careful sowing of seed, procured an infinite variety.

"Nor had the tables of our Elizabethan ancestors any lack of fruits and vegetables. Several kinds of peaches are enumerated in the 'Historie of Plants,' as well as apricots, green figs, mulberries, quinces, many varieties of apples (amongst them the 'Pearemaine'), cherries, pears, medlars, etc. Among vegetables we naturally search eagerly for the mention of the potato. Gerard describes two species. The first, he says, grows in India, Barbary, and Spain, of which 'I planted diuers roots (that I bought at the exchange in London) in my garden, where they flourished vn-till winter, at which time they perished and rotted.' 'The nutriment,' he tells us, ' is, as it were, a meane betweene flesh and fruit.' The other kind (Bat-tata Virginiana) has a still greater interest for us, though we look in vain for its association with Sir Walter Raleigh. Gerard received his roots from 'Virginia, otherwise called Norembega,' and they grew and prospered in his garden. Both kinds of potato are either 'rosted in the embers, or boiled and eaten with oile, vineger, and pepper,' and they 'may serue as a ground or foundation, whereon the cunning confectioner or sugar-baker may work and frame many comfortable delicate conserues! ' Though ignoring the connection between the great colonist and the potato.

Gerard does not fail to give him due honour. Witness this quaint and suggestive passage in another place in which he describes the Indian Swallow-wort: 'It groweth, as before rehearsed, in the countries of Norembega, and now called Virginia by the H. Sir Walter Raleigh, who hath bestowed great summes of monie in the discouerie thereof, where are dwelling at this present Englishmen, if neither vntimely death by murdering, or pestilence, corrupt aire, or some other mortall sicknes hath not destroied them.'"

In regard to the potato, it may be noted that though it is not unusual to find writers stating that the first mention of the potato occurs in Gerard's Herbal, Gerard himself, or at least this third edition, quotes Bauhin, another old writer as saying, it was "first introduced from the Island of Virginia, thence to France, from whence it spread to adjacent regions." Bauhin further says the roots are called Openanck in Virginia, Papas in the vicinity of Quito, and by Joseph Acosta in his history of India, Benzoni and Pape. In Germany they were called at that time he says,, Grublingbaum. He speaks of a colored plate having been issued by D. Scholtzius in 1590, under the name of Pappas Hispanorum. There is also a figure quoted from Mathioli's work, from a sketch sent by Clusius. It is described by Math-ioli as Solanum tuberosum esculentum, the two first names being adopted by Linnaeus on the establishment of the binomial system. Mathioli's work was issued in 1598.