1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Gooseberry

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Gooseberry

Gooseberry, Grossularia, by some Uva, and by others Crispa, because villose and hairy. There are many species and seminal variations amongst the species themselves to be met with, but the two sorts principally cultivated are the hairy Gooseberry, and the large white Dutch. They are propagated from the suckers or cuttings, but the latter are preferable, as they produce much better roots than the former, which are apt to be woody. Autumn, before the leaves begin to fall, is the proper time for planting the cuttings out, taking the same from the bearing branches, about eight inches in length, and planting three inches deep, observing to nip off all under branches, so as to raise it to a head on a single stalk; in October you are directed to remove them into beds about three feet asunder, and having been one year in the nursery, they are to be removed to the places where they are to remain, six and eight feet asunder, row from row, observing to prune their roots, and all the lateral branches about Michaelmas; the London gardeners prune their bushes and cut them with shears into hedges, but this method is not approved of by Miller, who advises pruning with a knife, thinning the bearing branches, and shortening them to about ten inches, cutting away all the irregular ones; by this culture, I doubt not the Gooseberries would be as good as any in Europe; there is a small Gooseberry, very leafy, and which bears its leaves and fruit a long time, that is not worth cultivation; wherefore I would advise the banishing them from the garden.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Horse Radish

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Horse Radish

Horse Radish, Cocklearia, from Cochlear lat, a spoon, because the leaves are hollow like a spoon....is a species of the Scurvey grass. It is to be propagated from buds or cuttings from the sides of the old roats, in October or February; the former for dry land, and the latter for moist. The offsets should have buds on their crowns, and the heads planted out should be about two inches in length. The method of planting them is in trenches about ten inches deep, about five distance each way, the bud upwards, covering them up with the mould taken out of the trenches. Then the ground is to be levelled with a rake, and kept free from weeds, and the second year after planting, the roots may be used; the first year the roots are very slender. When you have cut from a root and separated as much as you have occasion for, put it into the ground again with the head just above the earth, and it will restore itself, if not pulled up soon after. It ought to be planted in very rich ground, otherwise it will not flourish. This method of planting I am so well pleased with that I never had any Horse Radish in my garden till I strictly pursued it, and I advise every one to follow it.

Garden Entry from Diary of Annapolis Craftsman William Faris 1724-1804

To see notes on this entry and nearly everything you ever wanted to know about William Faris and Annapolis, Maryland, in the late 18th-century,

See The Diary of William Faris: The Daily Life of an Annapolis Silversmith. edited by Mark Letzer and Jean B. Russo. Published by the Maryland Historical Society in 2003.

March 17, 1792
fine day. dugg up one half the Lott

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Celery

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Celery

Celery, Apium, quod apos eo gaudeant, or from Apex, because the ancients made crowns of it, is one of the species of Parsley. At first I was surprised to find this, but upon examining the two plants, there is, in many particulars, a characteristic likeness.

Celery is the Apium dulce, the seed of which should be sown in a successive manner to have it fine for any time; for after it is blanched it will not remain good longer than three weeks, or a month. but will rot or grow pithy. Let the first sowing then be in March, the second about a fortnight after, i. e. the last of March, the third in the beginning of April, and the fourth about the beginning of May.

In about three weeks or a month, the seed will come up, and if your plants grow stout, as probably they will in good land, you must transplant them into beds, and in June those of the first sowing will be fit to be put out for blanching, and the rest should also be put out as they appear strong enough to sustain a removal.

When they are transplanted for fruit, dig a trench by a line about ten inches wide and eight or nine deep, loosening the earth at the bottom, and levelling it; and the earth taken out of the trenches should be laid on the sides, for the convenience of earthing. These trenches should be about three feet asunder, and the plants should stand six inches distant from one another, in a straight row, cutting off the tops of the plants, when planted out. As the plants grow up, they should be carefully earthed up in a dry season, else they will rot, not above the crown or heart of the plant, and in a light rich soil, they will grow to twenty inches in height, but in poor land they will not exceed, ten.

Your first plantation should be in a moist soil, but not the latter, because the additional wet of the winter will rot your plants. The sun is a great enemy to Celery, when it is very hot, wherefore F would recommend the covering of your plants with brash, at all seasons of their growth, whilst the weather is hot, from nine in the morning until six o'clock in the evening. When you desire to raise seed, draw one or more of your flourishing plants, and plant it out in the spring,, let it be supported against the winds; aiid in August the seed will be ripe, which should be then tut up, dried, beat out, and preserved in bags.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Celeriac

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Celeriac

Celeriac,...Radice rapacea, Turnep rooted, is to be treated much in the same manner as Celery, except that the drills of these should be shallower, as this plant does not exceed ten inches in height, and requires but one earthing. The excellence of this consists in the size of its root, which is often as large as turneps. In summer water your plants, if the season is dry, and in winter cover them with haum, or any open covering to protect them from frosts.
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1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Parsley

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Parsley

Parsley, Apium hortense...if intended for the table, should be sown in drills pretty thick, in light rich land; but if for medicinal use (the roots being prescribed on many occasions,) the seed should be sown thin, and the plants drawn and treated as is directed in the culture of carrots.

Where you breed Rabbits it may be sown in the fields; Hares and Rabbits being remarkably fond of it, will resort to it from great distances. It is a sovereign remedy" to preserve sheep from the rot, by feeding twice a Week on this herb, about two hours each time. If intended for the table, the seed shauld be sown early in the spring; if for medicinal purposes, or for rabbits, the latter end of February in England, but about the middle of March in Virginia.

The gardeners have an advantage as to this plant, that the seed goes nine times to the devil before it comes up, alluding to the length of time it lies in the ground before it germinates, which is generally six weeks. In this it resembles celery, as also in its foliage, and the head where the seed is produced. There are several kinds of parsley, but these I have mentioned seem the most useful and particular.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Cabbage

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Cabbage

Cabbage, &c. Under Brassica is included all the several species of the Cabbage, among which Cauliflowers and Brocoli are classed. The proper time for sowing the seed of Brocoli is in the latter end of May, and transplant them into beds when they have eight leaves, and plant them out about the latter end of July, in a place well sheltered, not under the drip of trees, in a soil rather light than otherwise. About December, it is said, they will have purple heads, which are eaten, though I myself could never make them head before March. The distance these require is about two feet every way, though more would do better, if there is plenty of ground. The Roman Brocoli is the proper sort to cultivate, otherwise called the Italian Brocoli. When you cut the flowers or heads, cut to about five or six inches of the stem, and before they are boiled, strip off" the skin, and after having washed them, boil them in a clean cloth and serve them up with butter, as Cauliflowers are. The stems will eat like Asparagus, and the heads like Cauliflowers.

The common White Cabbage, capitata alba, is the proper sort for winter. It is long sided and flat. The seeds should be sown in April or March, and if they should grow long shanked, they should be pricked out till the middle of May, when they are to be transplanted to stand at about two and a half feet distance from one another, and three and a half row from row. Three things are necessary to Cabbages as well as other vegetables....to be watered in a dry season, hilled up if they grow long shanked, and kept clear of weeds, which draw the nourishment from the plants and make them spindle. In November take up your Cabbages by the roots, and plant them under a ridge of earth, with the tops of their heads to the south, covering the stems entirely; this will protect them the whole winter. If they are hard and compact when thus placed out, they will be sufficiently protected, and though the outside leaves may be affected by the frost, yet the hearts will remain entire.

The Savoy Cabbages, which are esteemed best when pinched by the frost, are to be treated in the same manner as the white, only they may be planted nearer one another, not being a long sort.

The Battersea Cabbage is the earliest of all, and bead in a short time, and burst if not cut soon:

But the Sugar Loaf, which is the finest, will remain a considerable time. These should be sown every month, and transplanted every season.

The Borecole, is treated like the white Cabbage, and need not be above a foot asunder. These are tough till the frost has made them tender.

There is a Cabbage which is called the Russia kind. They are very small, and soon degenerate, if the seed is not changed.

There is a Turnep Cabbage, which being very strong, is fit only for soup.

The seed of the Curled Colea*Ort are to be sown in July, about twelve inches asunder.

There is a Musk Cabbage, remarkable for its tasting like musk, and is to be treated in the common manner. I have met with these in Virginia, but Miller says, they are not propagated much in England, though the most delicious.

The common Cole'worts should be sown the beginning of July, and transplanted. There is a perenial Colewort, which will in poor land remain four years, but in rich not above two, before they go to seed. In order to save the seed of Cabbage, they should be taken out of the ground in November, and put under a hedge, or other sheltered place, buried up to the middle of the Cabbage, and in the spring they will begin to sprout and produce their seed. If the season should be dry, they should be assisted with moisture, and the stems should he supported. When the pods begin to be brown, cut off the extreme part of every branch or shoot. When your seeds are ripe, they should be cut off, threshed out when dry, and put into bags. By planting the several sorts of Cabbages together, as white and red, etc. there is a commixture of the effluvia of each, and each are vitiated, which is the reason, Miller imagines, why seed so soon degenerates in gardens, as gardeners are either negligent or unskilful in this particular, too generally.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Cucumber

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Cucumber

Cucumber, Cucuviis, is esteemed in its season the most refreshing and delicate of all vegetables. There are three sorts....First, Cucumis sativus vulgaris. Second, Cucumis fructu subleteo, the white cucumber. Third, Cucumis oblonges. The first is the common sort most in use, amongst which there is a difference in the size, length, &c. The second is cultivated in Holland chiefly, and the last sort is cultivated only in curious gardens, and are remarkable for their length and fewness of seed. As there are three sorts, so there are three seasons for cucumbers; the first is the early, in hot-beds, the second is the middle crop under glasses, and the third is for pickling. Although many are ambitious of having early fruit, yet it is certain that Cucumbers are not wholesome till the hot weather comes on; for being pent up in hot-beds, they inspire a confined watery air, which must necessarily make the plant crude and unhealthful. Towards the latter end of January, if you require Cucumbers in April, you are to get about two loads of long dung, which will be sufficient for a moderate family, and mixing it with some sea-coal ashes, you are to lay it in a heap, about three feet thick. In about four or five days, the dung will begin to heat, and then you must take off part of the top, laying it flat on the sides of your heap, and put on about two inches of good earth, which must be covered with your glasses. In a day or two after, when you find the earth pretty warm, put your seeds in the earth about a quarter of an inch deep, and keep it close covered with the glass all night and in bad weather, and the glass should be also covered with mat. In three or four days, the plants will appear, upon which you are to make a bed for a single light on the adjoining heap of dung, covering the top about three inches thick with mould, into which you are to put your plants, at about two inches distance each way, observing to put them into the earth almost up to their seed leaves. In twenty-four hours your plant will take root, and you are to give it what air you can without injury, turning the glass upside down in the heat of the day, or wiping off the water that is condensed in the upper part, and is very pernicious when it drops on your plants. You are to water your plants, though moderately, and your water should be as near the temperature of the air in which the plant exists as possible, and as the plants advance, support their shanks with a little dry sifted earth, which will much assist them. If your heat is too intense, run a stick into the middle of the dung, through the sides of the heap in two or three places, which will give vent to the steam. If it be too slack, cover the sides of your heap with more litter. When the third or rough leaf appears, you are to prepare another heap, in which you are to. make holes about a foot deep, and eight or nine inches over, which are to be filled with light fresh earth, and in these in four or five days you transplant your plants, observing to water them as before, and to put four plants into each, with their roots sloping toward the centre, lest they should get to the dung, and be injured by it. You should avoid keeping your glasses too close, for the steam may cause such a damp as will very much injure the plants. Your plants tending upwards when they are four or five inches high, should be forked down, and when you weed them, hold the leaves very gently with one hand, and weed them with the other. Pulling off the male blossom is not recommended, neither is pruning the vines, but if your glasses are filled with too much vine you ought to draw out ,one of the plants, provided it is not matted with those you intend to stand. Whenever your bed loses its heat in any degree, it ought to be repaired; and though the plants delight in heat, yet you must cover your glasses when the sun is in the meridian, and hot. In watering these beds, you must throw the water all over the vines, but not in the heat of the day, for the drops will collect the rays of the sun to a focus, blister and ruin the plants. And as at this season you have often cold nights, you should preserve the heat of the beds, and from this management your Cucumbers will last till the beginning of July, when your second crop will come to bear. The management of this second crop is pretty much the same with the former, only you must raise your glasses oftener, as the weather will be wanner, and your seeds are to be put into the ground in March or April. Miller directs that beds of dung should be made for the second crop as well as the first, and the same culture observed; but I believe if your seeds are sown in April in rich light hills, and sheltered from the cold with glasses, it will answer just as well, provided you keep them free from weeds, and water with temperate water. Most people are fond of gathering their seed from the first early fruit, leaving one Cucumber only on a vine, nearest the heart of the plant, and this is a good way. In August your seeds will be ripe enough: then cut open the Cucumber and put pulp and seed into a tub, there to remain eight or ten days, stirring them every day to the bottom with a stick; at the expiration of that time, pour water, into the tub, and by stirring it often and repeating it, the scum will rise to the top and your seed subside, which are to be dried and put into a bag, and are best when three or four years old. Your seed that are intended for picklers, should be sown in May, about nine in a hill, and in five or six days they will appear above ground, and for above a week after, till the plant has made some progress, are very liable to be destroyed by Sparrows, they being very fond of them. Leave only four or five of the most vigorous plants in a hill, and observe to water in a dry season, and keep the ground about them loose, and free from weeds. The earth should be laid round your plants in the form of a bason, to hold the water that is given them, and take care that your plants don't interweave with one another; and if any plants appear lading or declining, pull them up. Fifty holes is the number advised, from whence you may expect to gather about two thousand in the season. Miller mentions the putting your plants into baskets, when they are fit to transplant, filled with earth, which may be removed with the plants in them, into other hot-beds with great security, by which means you have a crop much earlier than in the method before mentioned. If Cucumbers are stuck, as you do peas, they will run to a great height, and will bear till the frosts destroy them.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Fennel

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Fennel

Fennel, Faeniculum. This may be propagated from seed or the plants, as Featherfew, and nothing more is necessary than to keep it from seedling, because it will overrun the garden; the roots being very strong, continue a long while in the ground.

A little more about fennel that was not in Randolph's short description.

Fennel...

Fennel was well known to the Ancients and was cultivated by the ancient Romans for its aromatic fruits and succulent, edible shoots. Pliny had much faith in its medicinal properties, according no less than 22 remedies to it, observing also that serpents eat it 'when they cast their old skins, and they sharpen their sight with the juice by rubbing against the plant.'

A very old English rhyming Herbal, preserved at Stockholm, gives the following description of the virtue of the plant:
'Whaune the heddere (adder) is hurt in eye
Ye red fenel is hys prey,
And yif he mowe it fynde
Wonderly he doth hys kynde.
He schall it chow wonderly,
And leyn it to hys eye kindlely,
Ye jows shall sang and hely ye eye
Yat beforn was sicke et feye.'
Many of the older herbalists uphold this theory of the peculiarly strengthening effect of this herb on the sight.
Longfellow alludes to this virtue in the plant:
'Above the lower plants it towers,
The Fennel with its yellow flowers;
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers
Lost vision to restore.'

In mediaeval times, Fennel was employed, together with St. John's Wort and other herbs, as a preventative of witchcraft and other evil influences, being hung over doors on Midsummer's Eve to warn off evil spirits. It was likewise eaten as a condiment to the salt fish so much consumed by our forefathers during Lent.

Though the Romans valued the young shoots as a vegetable, it is not certain whether it was cultivated in northern Europe at that time, but it is frequently mentioned in Anglo-Saxon cookery and medical recipes prior to the Norman Conquest.

Fennel shoots, Fennel water and Fennel seed are all mentioned in an ancient record of Spanish agriculture dating A.D. 961.

The diffusion of the plant in Central Europe was stimulated by Charlemagne, who enjoined its cultivation on the imperial farms.

It is mentioned in Gerard (1597), and Parkinson (Theatricum Botanicum, 1640) tells us that its culinary use was derived from Italy, for he says: 'The leaves, seede and rootes are both for meate and medicine; the Italians especially doe much delight in the use thereof, and therefore transplant and whiten it, to make it more tender to please the taste, which being sweete and somewhat hot helpeth to digest the crude qualitie of fish and other viscous meats. We use it to lay upon fish or to boyle it therewith and with divers other things, as also the seeds in bread and other things.'

William Coles, in Nature's Paradise (1650) affirms that 'both the seeds, leaves and root of ourGarden Fennel are much used in drinks and broths for those that are grown fat, to abate their unwieldiness and cause them to grow more gaunt and lank.'

The ancient Greek name of the herb, Marathron, from maraino, to grow thin, probably refers to this property. It was said to convey longevity, and to give strength and courage.

Milton, in Paradise Lost alludes to the aroma of the plant:
'A savoury odour blown,
Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense
Than smell of sweetest Fennel.'

The odor of Fennel seed is fragrant, its taste, warm, sweet and agreeably aromatic. It yields its virtues to hot water, but more freely to alcohol. The essential oil may be separated by distillation with water.

It was formerly the practice to boil Fennel with all fish, and it was mainly cultivated in kitchen gardens for this purpose.

It is one of the plants which is said to be disliked by fleas, and powdered Fennel has the effect of driving away fleas from kennels and stables.

Culpepper says: 'One good old custom is not yet left off, viz., to boil fennel with fish, for it consumes the phlegmatic humour which fish most plentifully afford and annoy the body with, though few that use it know wherefore they do it. It benefits this way, because it is a herb of Mercury, and under Virgo, and therefore bears antipathy to Pisces. Fennel expels wind, provokes urine, and eases the pains of the stone, and helps to break it. The leaves or seed boiled in barley water and drunk, are good for nurses, to increase their milk and make it more wholesome for the child. The leaves, or rather the seeds, boiled in water, stayeth the hiccup and taketh away nausea or inclination to sickness. The seed and the roots much more help to open obstructions of the liver, spleen, and gall, and thereby relieve the painful and windy swellings of the spleen, and the yellow jaundice, as also the gout and cramp. The seed is of good use in medicines for shortness of breath and wheezing, by stoppings of the lungs. The roots are of most use in physic, drinks and broths, that are taken to cleanse the blood, to open obstructions of the liver, to provoke urine, and amend the ill colour of the face after sickness, and to cause a good habit through the body; both leaves, seeds, and roots thereof, are much used in drink, or broth, to make people more lean that are too fat. A decoction of the leaves and root is good for serpent bites, and to neutralize vegetable poison, as mushrooms, etc.'

In Italy and France, the tender leaves are often used for garnishes and to add flavour to salads, and are also added, finely chopped, to sauces served with puddings.

Roman bakers are said to put the herb under their loaves in the oven to make the bread taste agreeably.

John Evelyn, in his Acetaria (1680), held that the peeled stalks, soft and white, of the cultivated garden Fennel, when dressed like celery exercised a pleasant action conducive to sleep.

Formerly poor people used to eat Fennel to satisfy the cravings of hunger on fast days and make unsavoury food palatable; it was also used in large quantities in the households of the rich, as may be seen by the record in the accounts of Edward I.'s household, 8 1/2 lb. of Fennel were bought for one month's supply.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Carrots

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Carrots

Carrots, Daucus...are of two sorts, the orange and white, the former being generally used, though the latter is much the sweetest kind. To have them fine in the spring, sow them in drills about two feet distance, for the convenience of weeding them, about the latter end of August, and when they appear, draw them so as to keep them about four inches asunder, and in February sow again for the summer, and in April for the fall. They choose alight warm soil, and should neverbe dunged with long dung; nay, it is thought best to dung the ground the year before; for when they touch dung or meet with obstruction, they fork immediately. The seed should be rubbed before sown, to get rid of the husk to which they adhere. It should be sown in a calm day, as the seed is very light and easily blown away. They should be trodden down when sown, and raked smoothly over. When your carrots appear heady above ground, they should be trodden, that they may grow more below than above. In November take up your roots and put them in dry sand, and you may use them as occasion requires. About the middle of February, plant out one of the most flourishing for seed, which, when ripe, dry in the sun and rub out.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Asparagus

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Asparagus

Asparagus....Grow a young shoot; are to be propagated either from the seed or roots. The seed are contained in those things which look like red berries. These are to be gathered from the most flourishing stalks, and laid in a tub for about three weeks to ferment. This will rot the husks, which will swim upon being rubbed between the hands, and having water poured upon them, but the seed will go to the bottom. Pour the water off gently, and the husks will be carried along with it. This being done two or three times, the seed will become perfectly clean. They are then to be laid on a mat or dish, and exposed to the sun to dry. When that is done, they may be put into a hag and pricked out in February or March, in beds about a foot asunder every way, anil never to be transplanted. But if they are to he transplanted, they may he sown as thick as you do Cabbage. If you propagate from the roots, those of a year old are most eligible, though if two, they will succeed very well. In planting them out, they should he placed about four inches under the surface of the ground, with the bud erect, against the side of the earth perpendicularly cut, so that the extremity of the roots may touch each other. This will put them about a foot asunder; the best time for transplanting them is when they begin to shoot, but before they appear above ground. The principal thing to be regarded with these plants, is the bed in which they are to be placed. A great apparatus was formerly made use of, but now seems *On all hands to be disregarded. Nothing more is necessary than to make your beds perfectly rich and light, that the head may not be obstructed in its growth upwards. Two feet of mould and dung is depth sufficient for any plant. They are to be kept clean from weeds, and nothing sown upon the beds. The fourth year from the seed they may be cut moderately, but it is better to wait till the fifth. About October the haum should be cut down, and the beds covered with rotten dung about six inches, part of which may he taken off in February or March, and the remainder forked up in the«beds, which will not only assist the roots, but raise the beds in some small degree yearly, which is an advantage. A spade is a very prejudicial instrument to them. Cut with a blunt pointed knife (some use a saw) and separate the earth from the plant, and cut it so as not to endanger the head of another that may be shooting up. There are joints in the roots of the Sparrow grass like the Wire grass, from every one of which a head is produced. Butchers' dung is what it delights in. I would recommend your beds to be about four feet wide, that the grass may be cut without treading on the beds, which often hardens the earth so much that the grass cannot come up, and must of course perish. In these beds I would have three rows; for the roots ought to have a sufficient quantity of earth on all sides. Beds thus managed, Miller says, will last ten or twelve years; Bradly says twenty, and I am inclined to join with the latter.

1764 Dr John Hope's Proposal to get seeds from America to the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh

John Kay.  Dr. John Hope, Professor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh Kay's Originals, Vol 2, page 412. John Hope (1725-1786) was a Scottish physician & botanist. He is best known as an early supporter of Carl Linnaeus's system of classification. He served as president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 1784-6.  Hope was the son of surgeon Robert Hope & Marion Glas.  He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He took leave to study botany under Bernard de Jussieu at the University of Paris, but returned to his studies in Scotland, graduating MD from the University of Glasgow in 1750.

Monday, September 3, 1764  New-York Gazette (New York, NY)

Proposal for an annual importation of AMERICAN SEEDS into Scotland.

A Taste for the propagation of American plants, particularly trees, has of late diffused itself very much in this country. And such a taste, doubtless, deserves to be encouraged: for theoretical speculation gives us reason to hope, and time and experience will probably Convince us, that these plants may prove the means of making considerable improvements in this kingdom.

But this taste labours under great discouragements at present. In the first place, the skill and fidelity of the savers and collectors of these seeds in America are uncertain. In the next place, the integrity of the seedsmen in Britain is not always to be trusted; who, from the expense they are at in procuring these seeds, are often tempted, if any others remain on hand over year, to dispose of them as fresh seeds. And though nothing were to be feared in either of these respects ; yet, after all, there is commonly little choice in the assortments sent over at random, and a man curiosity is often disappointed in his inquiries after the seeds he wants.

To remedy these inconveniencies deserves the attention of all who wish well to planting, gardening, or agriculture. And as our new acquisitions in America promise us a large accession of plants to our former collections, and of plants too to which the climate of Britain will be peculiarly suited, the following proposals are humbly submitted to the consideration of all who will) well to their country.

I. That a subscription shall be set on foot for an importation of American seeds into Scotland, the subscription-lnm being two guineas each person.

II. That the scheme shall be put into execution this year 1764.

III. That a botanical catalogue, with the provincial names, shall be made up, with the greatest care, of American, and particularly Canadian, plants and trees, which can be supposed to thrive in the open air in Britain.

IV. That a correspondence shall be settled with some persons of integrity, and skill in botany, residing in one or other of the colonies of New-England, New-York, Pennsylvania.

V. That the catalogue of plants shall be transmitted to them, that they may send over a quantity of the seeds of the plant: in proportion to the sums subscribed.

VI. That they shall also be directed to inquire after, and transmit, a particular information concerning the circumstances attending the growth of the several plants, so far as they can, viz. the soil and latitude where they grow naturally ; what region of the air they inhabit; whether they are found near the coast, or in the inland parts; if growing on hills, or in their neighbourhood ; what aspect they delight in, dye.

VIl. That this commision shall be given early in the season, so that the seeds may be properly saved, and imported in due time.

VIII. That when the seeds come home, they shall be divided into small lots, of, the value of ten shillings or under, each lot comprehending a quantity of each kind of seeds.

IX. That as the quantity of tree and shrub seeds is proposed to be greater than that of the seeds of herbaceous plants, there shall be lots of tree and shrub seeds put up by themselves.

X. That the subscribers shall be furnished with what lots of these seeds they want, at prime cost, as value for part of their subscriptions.

Xl. That the remaining lots, sealed up, and marked with the year and price, shall be put into the hands of seedsmen, to be sold out to all who call for them, not more than one lot to one person, in order to indemnify the subscribers; and that if any os the lots of seeds shall remain unsold after one year, the same shall be returned to the society.

XII. That the subscription shall continue during pleasure.

By these means there would be a regular and annual importation of seeds, so that if through the accidents of seasons the feeds of one year should misgive, the planter would be sure of a supply the next year; and the person employed in America would find it worth while to be at pains in collecting these seeds, and transmitting them safe, and in a vegetating state, to Britain.

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
For the next decade he practiced medicine, indulging in botany in his spare time. In 1760, he was appointed as King's Botanist & as Professor of Botany & Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh.  Hope succeeding in combining the gardens & collections at Trinity Hospital & Holyrood to a new, combined site on the road to Leith. He also succeeded in obtaining a permanent endowment for the garden, thus establishing arguably the first ever "Royal Botanic Garden."

When Hope became the 6th Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1761, he made a momentous decision early on in his tenure: close down the existing small physic gardens at Holyrood to create a new, much larger garden on a 5 acre site on Leith Walk.

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

At its entrance, Hope decided to build a little house which could serve as a gateway to the garden, a home for his head gardener, & a classroom in which he could teach medical students about botany – it would come to be known as the Botanic Cottage.

The Botanic Cottage at the entrance to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Designed by noted architects John Adam & James Craig – the latter responsible for designing the layout of Edinburgh’s New Town just a few years later in 1767 – the Botanic Cottage was completed in 1765.  Hundreds of students learned about botany in its large upstairs room overlooking the garden, hearing directly from Professor Hope about his experiments & studies, & referring to his detailed diagrams & illustrations.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Onion

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Onion

Onion, Cepa. There are three sorts for winter use; the Strasburg...the red Spanish Onion...the white Spanish Onion... There are other sorts which suit the spring and summer season best. There are Cepa ascalonica,from Ascalon, a city in India, or the Scallion or Escallion. The Cives, or Copula, the young Onion. The Welch Onion, and lastly the Ciboule. The three first sorts should be sown in February, the first open weather, or beginning of March at farthest, and in about six weeks your Onions will be up, and ought to be weeded. The rows should be about twelve or eighteen inches asunder, if sowed in drills, which is the best method, arid the plants should be drawn to be about five or six inches apart. This may be no loss, because they will serve with young salad in the spring; about the middle or latter end of July your plants will be ripe, which may be discovered by the dropping down or shrinking of the blades; then they should be drawn up, and the extreme part of the blades should be cropped off, and the plants laid on the ground to dry. They should be turned at least every other day, otherwise they will strike fresh root, especially in moist weather. In about a fortnight they will be sufficiently dried; you are then to rub off all the earth and take care to remove all that are any ways decayed, and the sound ones laid as thin as possible in some room or garret, as close from the air as possible, and at least once a month look over them, to see if any of them are decayed, for if any are so, they will affect the. rest; or if too near one another, or in heaps, they will heat, and probably ruin the whole crop. The white Onion is the sweetest, though all the three sorts will degenerate into one another in the course of time. In March'you should dig a trench, and put some of your most flourishing plants about six inches deep, and as far asunder,v into it, which should be covered over with a rake, and in about a month's time the leaves will appear above ground, and when your plants begin to head, they should be supported by stakes and packthread or yarn, otherwise they will be very liable to be injured by the winds. These will produce you seed about August, which may be known by the seeds changing brown, and the bells where the seed is contained opening. The heads should be critically cut, otherwise the seed will be dropped, and when cut, the heads should be exposed to the sun, and sheltered in the night and wet weather, and when suificiently dry, they should be rubbed out, and after being exposed one day more to the sun, may be put into bags and preserved for the following year. The Scallion is a small Onion, and is sown early in the spring, and never forms any bulb, and is used green in the spring with young salads. The Ciboule and Welch Onion, are thought to be the same by Miller.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Clary

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Clary

Clary, Sclarea...These are propagated either from the seed, in a light soil, or parting the roots and planting them out at Michaelmas, about eighteen inches asunder; these will last many years.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Chamomile

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Chamomile

Chamomile, Chamomelum, (from Melon, gr. an Apple, because it has the scent of one, J or Anthemis, as it is called by Dr. Linnans. There are different species, but the chamomelum odoratishmum repens, fore simplici, is the sort chiefly propagated. It is used medicinally, and in making green walks or edgings; the method of planting is, to separate the roots, as they grow very close, and prick each root into poor land, about ten inches asunder, in the month of March; they will quickly stretch themselves into contact with each other, and as the flowers ripen they should be gathered and dried. When thick, it is apt to rot in the winter, so that it ought now and then to be thinned.

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1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Artichokes

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Artichokes

ARTICHOKES, known to botanical writers by the name of Cynara, are to be propagated either from the seed, which are to be gathered from the choke or flower at the head of the Artichoke, or from slips, which are to be separated from the main stalk by the edge of the hand, and transplanted. If these offsets are good, they will be of a whitish colour about the heel, and will have some little root to them. If you have plenty of ground, put three slips in a hill, and let the hills be four feet asunder, and the rows the same; but if you are scanty with regard to your land, you must cut your coat according to your cloth. About March, or the beginning of April, you are annually to slip off all the lateral branches with your hand, and leave only the three principal stalks in your hill. Every spring they ought to be dunged: sheep dung and ashes are not only the best for that purpose, but also for preparing the ground for them. If you have depth of mould enough, i. e. two feet, and you don't crop your ground with any thing else, your Artichokes will remain good a number of years; but if they are any ways neglected, or the ground is tended, they will not only be injured in their growth, but will very much degenerate in five years. When planted out, they should be well watered, if not in a wet season, and be kept clean from weeds. There are various methods of preserving them from the severity of winter. Some cut them down within a foot of the earth, and cover them with a hill or ridge, leaving a small hole at the top, which is covered with dung. I have found from many years' experience, that long dung is an enemy to them, and that the best way to preserve them is, by laying straw on the surface of the ground, over their roots. This preserves the leaves from rotting which fall down from the frost, and, united, afford such a protection to the plant, that not one in fifty will perish. They never flourish in a dripping situation, but like a low place, not too wet, but very rich. When you cut them, cut the stalks quite down to the ground, which strengthens the plants, and makes them forwarder in the spring. There will be many on a stalk, but all must be pulled off except that which is on the centre of the main stalk, if you propose having them fine. If you prick out the slips in the spring, you may have a succession till the fall. The leaves of Artichokes, I have been informed, clean pewter the best of any thing. There are different sorts, but two only that are much propagated. First, Foliis aculeatis, i. e. with prickly leaves. Second, Foliis non aculeatis capite subrubente, i. e. without prickly leaves, and with a smooth and reddish head. The latter is most preferred. There is the Cynara spinosa, which is to be cultivated and eaten like celery, and which produces a head with the seed not unlike the Artichoke, fro in whence it took its name. The common name is chardooh, or cardoon. The Jerusalem Artichoke...is only a species of the Sun-flower, with a tuberous root, not unlike a Potatoe. Some admire them, but they are of a flatulent nature, and are apt to cause commotions in the belly.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Chives

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Chives

Chives never grow into bulbs, but in bunches, and Miller takes it to be Shallot. They do not grow above six inches high in the blade. They are to be propagated by parting the roots or planting the cloves. They do not affect the breath so much as the other sorts. The Welch Onion at some seasons of the year, viz: in the fall, dies away, but revives in January, and becomes very early in the spring fit for the table.

Garden of Annapolis, Maryland Craftsman William Faris 1728-1804

Even though he seldom spelled a word the same way twice, William Faris kept a diary, filled with his gardening triumphs and failures, for the last 12 years of his life-704 pages between 1792 and 1804.

William Faris was not a gentleman gardener by any stretch of the imagination. Faris, the son of a London clockmaker, was brought to Philadelphia in 1728, at the age of 6 months by his recently widowed mother and; apprenticed to a clockmaker at an early age. When he was 19, he moved to Annapolis, Maryland, where he scrambled all his life to make a respectable living.
William Faris's 1st Advertisement in the March 17, 1757, Maryland Gazette of Annapolis.

In Maryland's capital Annapolis, he designed silver teapots and; spoons; struggled to build a pianoforte; assembled tiny watches and towering tall clocks; kept an inn and tavern; pulled neighbors’ teeth (and hung them on a string by his workbench); and annually contracted to wind the clocks at the state capitol and in the homes of neighboring gentry.
Silver Sauceboat attributed to William Faris. Baltimore Museum of Art.

Artisan Gardener

In whatever spare time he could find, William Faris gardened and talked about gardening with his clients, neighbors, family, and the servants and slaves he hired to help him with his garden chores. He would sprinkle a little local gossip in with tales of tulips and artichokes.

Of course, the craftsman used his garden to grow food for his wife, 6 children, and inn patrons; but surprisingly he also designed intricate flower beds, near the front of his lot, where his neighbors could admire them.
William Faris's Diary. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.

The grand terraced falling gardens of Chesapeake gentry and merchants are easier to learn about than the smaller town gardens of craftsmen, traders, and shopkeepers, whose numbers were growing during the later half of the 18th-century. William Faris’s invaluable journal offers a rare opportunity to reconstruct the town garden of an early American artisan.
1789 Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827).  State House at Annapolis, Maryland.

Annapolis was designed as a stage for the social and political affairs of the province of Maryland. During the second half of the century, Chesapeake gardeners, gentry and artisans alike, designed the grounds surrounding their homes as their personal stages, on which they presented themselves to those passing by.

William Faris’s house sat on one of the streets radiating out of the Church Circle, only a few hundred feet from the church. In the spring of 1804, Faris’s private Eden sat behind a freshly painted, bright red wodden gate at the front entrance to his grounds.

Eighteenth-century Maryland gateways, smaller and simpler than their European precedents, were still intended to limit access to their owner’s property. They also marked changes in personal roles, as people crossed from one side to the other.

Outside his garden gate, craftsman William Faris was a tired 75-year-old silversmith and clockmaker, with thinning hair pulled back into a queue and covered with a familiar frayed hat, who gossiped too much and drank ardent spirits too freely.
18C English Woodcut

But on the other side of his bright red gate, the old man blossomed. Here was the world he had mastered for over 40 years. The red gate opened in a recently build stone wall that stretched 75 feet from the side of Faris’s house to his neighbor’s property line and ran along the edge of the town’s busiest trade street.

The craftsman’s 36-foot-wide combination home, inn, and shop, “At the Sigh of the Crown and Dial,” sat directly on West Street. Like many other narrow Chesapeake town gardens, Faris’s began in a side lot and widened as it stretched to the rear of the property. The adjoining new stonework wall across the front replaced an old wooden picket fence.

Behind the wall and its new gate, the clockmaker’s grounds were enclosed by picket fences and ran back 366 feet to a sleepy rear street, where the lot widened to 200 feet.

Wooden fences surrounded most 18-century Maryland gardens, which were usually described in local newspaper property-for-sale ads as “well paled in.” Chesapeake picket fences were almost invariably painted white but were of differing designs.

Interlopers and Thieves

Faris and his neighbors felt that fences of one sort or another were an absolute necessity, to discourage uninvited human and animal visitors as well as to demarcate their property boundaries. Chesapeake gardeners could either buy their fences posts from local suppliers of employ “a couple of stout hands in mauling fence logs.”

Faris’s neighbors Charles Carroll of Annapolis (1702-83) and his son Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832) used their slaves to produce garden pales. Fancy wooden paling constructed emulating Chinese designs was advertised for sale in the Chesapeake region by the late 1760s. Variety of design became important as many town governments demanded that every homeowner enclose his land.

In the colonies, garden interlopers were not searching for game or timber, as in Britain; they were looking for the fruits of the gardener’s labor or were simply accidental tourists. Livestock occasionally roamed the streets in early American towns, and tender garden plants did not stand a chance under their feet. Human garden intrusion was usually more focused.

One night in 1792, Faris startled a thief in his garden and recorded that his subsequent flight “broke off the top of one of the pales.” But the incident that really angered him was when a thief stole into his garden one dark night in 1803 to steal a dozen of his most prized possessions--his tulips.

Craftsman's Tulips

Tulips were the old man’s obsession. At the height of their blooming, Faris would find himself engulfed in a flood of color. This artisan and innkeeper grew thousands of tulips each year; he counted 2339 in the spring of 1804.

Within the boxwood-lined spaces formed by the intersecting composition and grass walks, Faris planted all of his flower beds and some of his vegetable patches year after year. Using boxwood as edging for garden beds had become popular in the 16th century.

Faris used boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) for more that year-round definition of garden beds. Box edging gave protection to seedlings and to newly picked-from greens expected to produce more leaves for later rounds of harvesting.

Faris and his garden helpers devoted days each spring to cutting the boxwood on his grounds. They were not just trimming the new green growth; they were also cutting the roots of each boxwood on the garden side as close to the plant as possible, so that the shallow roots would not rob the soil within the beds of their nutrients and moisture necessary for the other plants in the garden.

Ornamental Gardens

Faris planned his grounds; so that from the front of his property, observers would see only the pleasure garden areas of his grounds which was dominated by geometric beds annually planted with flowers in the Dutch tradition. The beds were all bordered by grass walkways, adjoining property lines, or by one of the rectangular out-buildings on he property.

He filled the boxwood-lined rectangular beds on each side of the main grass walks with tuberoses, tulips, anemones, Chinese asters, crown imperials, globe amaranthus, and larkspur.

The long composition walkway leading to the “necessary,” which guests and family would constantly need to walk, was flanked by boxwood-lined rectangular beds starring carefully trimmed holly trees surrounded by a supporting cast of tuberoses, white roses, India pinks, Chinese asters, tulips, hyacinths, and jonquils. Faris and his helpers collected his holly trees from nearby woods and kept them trimmed in the shape of sugar cones or loaves.
Tulips were not the only bulb flower that caught his fancy; in 1798, he planted 4000 narcissus bulbs, bought from a neighbor. This tireless gardener’s greatest pleasure was creating new varieties of tulips in nursery beds at the back of his property, where he also hybridized roses.

Faris saw his tulips as symbols of the new nation as well as reflections of classical republican ideals. On the eve on July 4, 1801, exactly 25 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Faris listed in his journal his tulip varieties by name. Namesakes included Presidents Washington and Madison and classical heroes such as Cincinnatus.

Never one to let an financial opportunity pass him by, Faris gardened for the money as well as love. Each spring he invited his neighbors to view his tulips at the height of their glory. Admiring visitors would mark varieties that caught their eye with sticks notched with a personal code.

When his precious tulips died back in June, Faris would dig up the bulbs near the notched sticks, and the admirers would return to buy them to replant on their grounds in the fall. The craftsman made sure he had plenty to spare.

The ornamental garden beds the craftsman designed in the 1760s were akin in design, if not grandeur, to the more elegant geometric gardens that Chesapeake gentry were busy building about the same time. After he bought and enlarged his combination house and business, Faris hired an English indentured servant gardener, in 1765, to help him install the basic design of his gardens.

Just as in the gardens of most Chesapeake gentry, straight paths and walkways formed the skeleton of his garden. Faris’s grounds were divided by both grass and composition walks separating boxwood-lined beds; such paths were essential for walking, maintaining the garden beds year-round, and defining the garden design.

Designs for most Chesapeake gardens of the period appeared to strive for uniformity in every part; exact levels, straight lines, parallels, squares, circles, and other geometrical figures were used to effect symmetry and proportion. Straight walks were everywhere, arranged parallel and crossing one another at regular intersections, as they connected spaces and led from scene to scene.

Faris planned small geometric beds on his compact town property, where economy of scale was essential. These beds were planted with low-growing vegetables and brightly flowering plants within the boxwood borders that outlined and decorated the space even after the flower season was past.

Faris kept the walkways that divided his garden beds in immaculate condition. This required constant maintenance.18C English Woodcut

Faris’s female slave, who was his regular gardening companion, was busy each spring and fall sweeping and raking the composition garden walks, which were some combination of gravel, crushed oyster shells, and pulverized brick. Whenever he could round them up, his children helped as well.

Even old Faris himself, who often experienced crippling pain in his hips, spent days bending down to clean his gardens and walkways of stones, extraneous shells, weeds, and falling petals.

Faris also criss-crossed his grounds with grass paths, lined with boxwood, that would be pleasant and cool to the feet; but his more practical hard, slightly convex composition walkways allowed for quick water drainage and drier walking in wet weather. He paved the walks to the privy, which had to be used regardless of weather, with stones and crushed shells.

Boxwood Obsession

A narrow boxwood-bordered rectangular flower border next to the picket fence running along an adjacent lot featured Job’s tears, satin flowers, India pinks, snapdragons, tulips, and flowering beans that climbed the fence posts blooming as it trailed along the wooden rails.

Faris planted one of his several experimental nursery beds in the half of the garden nearer the house. There he grew the flowers to supply his various pleasure beds, propagated vast varieties of tulips and perennials, and heeled-in the boxwood cuttings he used to outline his garden beds.

Not all of the craftsman’s flower bes were rectangular in shape. The area behind the house was dominated by a walnut tree. Nestled around its base was a circular bed divided into boxwood-lined quarters filled with tulips and bleeding hearts in May, followed by a succession of bright perennials throughout the summer months.

Not far from the walnut tree, Faris planted a corresponding quartered circular bed also outlined with boxwood. The colorful circle overflowed with a profusion of polyanthus, tuberoses, wall flowers, India pinks, Chinese asters, hyacinths, jonquils, and tulips. In fact, wherever Faris planted flower beds, he included tulips. Sometimes, he even squeezed an errant tulip or two into his vegetable beds.

Kitchen Garden

Usually though, he separated his utility gardens from his ornamental areas, subscribing to the advice that English garden writer William Lawson offered in his New Orchard and Garden in 1618 “Garden flowers shall suffer some disgrace, if among them you intermingle Onions, Parsnips, andc.” The practical craftsman devoted the majority of his land to growing vegetables and fruits.

Faris’s occasional Annapolis neighbor, John Beale Bordley, gave growers advice on the kitchen garden, which he said should be an acre and a half for a small family like Faris’s and four to five acres for a large one.

Bordley also allowed that the kitchen garden should be exposed to the sun, not overshadowed with trees or buildings. He explained that the “soil should be of a pliable nature and east to work; but by no means wet; and two feed, at least, deep.” Bordley advised that the kitchen garden should sit as “near the stables as possible, for the convenience of carrying dung.”
Walking toward the rear of Faris’s property, the first boxwood-bordered utilitarian area was a vegetable bed along the left boundary. Then one would encounter a small rectangular plot Faris planted with vegetables every year, one of two called “little quarter,” flanking the stables. There Faris grew unobtrusive vegetables and herbs that did not need much room to grow, including cabbages, carrots, peas, onions, thyme, spinach, curled savory, and several varieties of beans.

Herbs and Vegetables

Although Faris almost always segregated his flower beds from his vegetable plots, he did not separate herbs from vegetables. In one of the “little quarters,” Faris planted cabbages, asparagus, parsley, and Job’s tears

After he built his new stable, he added an additional narrow boxwood-bordered rectangular bed, where he grew smaller plants such as radishes, lettuce, nutmeg, and cherry peppers. On a border at the end of his new stable, which was visible from the main walkway leading to the rear of the lot, Faris occasionally grew a combination of flowers and vegetables: marigolds, lily of the valley, asters, balsam, anemones, and globe amaranthus nestled among bunch beans, spinach, radishes, and cherry tree seeds.

Not far from the new stable, the innkeeper maintained another boxwood-lined rectangular vegetable patch dubbed “the walnut tree bed,” where he grew beans, brussels sprouts, lettuce, kale, corn, and radishes. Faris diligently tended two separate asparagus plots near the back street, where he nudged a few more lettuce, cabbage, and spinach plants in between the tender green springtime shoots.

A great portion of the vegetables Faris fed his family and guests came from a larger vegetable plot, which he called simply “the garden” or the “big bed.” Faris outlined even this large rectangular vegetable garden with exact rows of sage and rosemary, which he kept trimmed and orderly. The “big bed” lay close to the stables and the smokehouse at the rear of the property. There Faris planted peas, parsnips, corn, cabbage, cauliflower, radishes, beans, cucumbers, squash, cantaloupes, and watermelon.

The craftsman devoted the largest space at the rear of his grounds solely to kitchen gardening. He referred to this particular areas as “the outer lot” of “the lot.” Spreading plants like squash, musk melons, cucumbers, watermelons, and cantaloupes grew there.

Faris occasionally scattered early crops of cabbages, carrots, greens, parsnips, radishes, brussels sprouts, and kale among the maturing vines; but he usually grew his compact vegetables in smaller patches, such as the narrow bed that ran down one side of his fenced property line, where he planted slender rows of small vegetables, including cabbages, lettuce, onions, brussels sprouts, spinach and peas.

Faris used the picket fence along the back of his grounds to help define a set of four rectangular nursery beds for rearing fledgling tulips and boxwood cuttings. Even these nursery compartments he outlined with neatly trimmed ivy borders and boxwood.

Near his bee house, Faris planted additional rows of peas, beans, cabbage, kale, parsley, and cherry peppers. Not one to let any space go to waste, he squeezed a few more radishes, lettuce, cabbages, and parsnips into a narrow rectangular space under the streetside window of his public dining room.

Porch

Atune to the times, in 1799 Faris added a wooden porch and steps to the back of his house, overlooking the garden area.

The Carrolls had added an elegant porch with stone columns to their Annapolis home when they remodeled their gardens in the 1770s, and many Baltimoreans and

Philadelphians were also building porches or piazzas onto their homes during this period. The addition of piazzas to Chesapeake homes in the last quarter of the 18th-century coincided with the expansion of leisure time and the development of ornamental gardens.

The simple geometric garden designs of the period were seen to best advantage from a higher level, such as an upper terrace, second-story windows, or a porch. These prospects also allowed the homeowner and his guests a better vantage point from which to survey both the gardener’s efforts at ordering nature around him and the surrounding countryside beyond.

Craftsman's Well and Irrigation

Near the porch stood the well, which supplied water for the family’s and their guests’ personal consumption and for garden irrigation. Eighteenth-century Chesapeake wells were often walled with stone and sometimes were dug to a depth of 35 feet or more, so that there would always be 4 to 5 feet of good water standing in them. The water was retrieved using bucket and pulley.
Detail of 17th-Century Woodcut of Water Table Irrigation System

Faris used the ancient irrigation technique of regularly flooding carefully constructed dirt channels that ran throughout his garden, which he called “water tables.”

Craftsman's Arbor

One of these irrigation paths led past an arbor. Faris planted flowering beans “round the Arber,” which probably had an open-work roof to support ornamental flowering vines and defined a focal point in the garden.

It may have enclosed a space for a simple bench or a more elaborate garden seat, although Faris did not write of such a seat. During the early 1790s, garden seats were being advertised for sale in nearby Baltimore, “made to particular directions.”

Dovecote

For a while, a dovecote sat near Faris’s arbor. In the Chesapeake, dovecotes were also called Culver-houses, and until 1798, Faris’s grounds boasted just such a nesting place. But in March of 1798, he noted in his diary, “the Pigeon House Blew Down, it was Built in the year 1777.”
Reproduced Dovecote at Williamsburg, Virginia. Photo by Karen Stuart.

Faris’s Culver-house was constructed as a matter of economic convenience rather than strictly as a garden ornament. He raised pigeons for consumption by his family and the patrons of his tavern. Unlike other domestic fowl, pigeons needed no confinement, because they were home-loving birds, seldom straying far from their dovecotes.

Faris’s pigeon house was constructed of wood and mounted on wooden posts, although more complicated colonial dovecotes existed, like the circular brick and stucco dovecote (reminiscent of the early Roman columbaria) at Tryon Palace in North Carolina.

One English visitor wrote of the less elegant dovecotes he observed in the Chesapeake at the end of the century, ”There are some pigeons, chiefly in boxes, by the sides of houses.”

After pigeon consumption was no longer an essential element of the craftsman's table or of the larger Chesapeake economy, dovecotes survived largely as garden embellishments, providing the gardener and his guests both visual and aural pleasure.

Craftsman's Beehives

One traditional garden component on Faris’s grounds was the result of a gift he received in the spring of 1793, when a neighbor “Made Me a present of Hive of Bees.”

By the next winter, Faris had built a shelter for the hive, putting “the frame of the bee house together.” Faris’s bee house was a painted pine box that may have been self-contained or may have served as a shelter for the more traditional but perishable strap skep; because only two years after the wooden box, Faris “drove the Bees out of the Old Hive into a nother hive and took the honey, the Hive was Rotten and Ready to tumble to peaces.”

But a visitor to Maryland during the same period noted, “Honey-bees are kept in America with equal success as in England. . . I never saw a hive made of straw.” Bees had long been garden residents and were considered decorative as well as practical.
18C English Woodcut

In 1618 William Lawson wrote in New Orchard and Garden, “There remaineth one necessary thing. . . Which in mine Opinion makes as much for Ornament, as either flowers, or forme, or cleanness. . . which is Bees, well ordered.”

The ever-practical craftsman, Faris knew that bees served him well as both pollinators of plants and producers of wax and honey and were worth the trouble of keeping them “well ordered.”

Rabbit Warren

A few years earlier Faris’s garden had sported another traditional functional garden component, a rabbit warren. Even though the rabbits graced his family’s table for many years, he in time dispensed with keeping them.

In 1792 he noted his intention to remove “the fence from the Rabbit yard and . . . Take up the Bricks.” The rabbits’ place on the grounds was eventually usurped by an additional vegetable plot.
18C English Woodcut

Faris may have found raising rabbits to be less cost effective than raising product, for one English visitor to the Chesapeake was skeptical of the possible success of raising rabbits for food or profit in Chesapeake gardens: ”Mr. Smith had got some imported rabbits. . .from England, with an intention to make a warren; but this will not answer in any part to America that I have seen. . . .First, there is no sod to make banks; therefore the fence must be all paled to keep them in, which is an enormous expense. Secondly. . .the winter is so severe they would not pay for the food the would eat.”

Statue
The most surprising item in the practical craftsman’s garden was a purely ornamental embellishment, a statue. Classical statues reminiscent of gardens in the Italian Renaissance dotted the grounds of wealthier Marylanders during the period. One of the Revolutionary War heroes to whom Faris had dedicated a tulip was Colonel John Eager Howard, whose Baltimore home was renowned for the statues that graced its gardens.

Craftsman's Privy

Faris’s grounds contained a practical structure he politely referred to as the “temple” in his garden. While some Chesapeake gardens may have had miniature versions of temples built on their pleasure grounds, Faris’s temple was his “necessary,” which he also nicknamed the “little house” and around which he consistently planted flowers in rectangular beds carefully bordered by boxwood.

As concern for basic survival in the British American colonies decreased, concern for propriety increased. One Maryland acquaintance of Faris wrote, “Many instances there are of a scandalous neglect of decency, even in opulent farmers, in their not building a single necessary. . .such ought tob e provided wherever there is habitation, be the family many or few, rich or poor.” Early Americans determined the placement of the privy by some compromise between convenience and the senses.

A German traveler souring the Chesapeake in 1783 noted that behind most town dwellings in America “is a little court or garden, where usually are the necessaries, and so this often evil-smelling convenience of our European houses is missed here, but space and better arrangement are gained.”

A strictly utilitarian shed, 16 by 20 feet, sat near the family privy. In it Faris stored his simple gardening tools, which included a spade, trowel, hoe, and rake.
Hollyhocks by the Stable

Craftsman's Stables

The outbuildings of town homes in the 18th-century Chesapeake often bordered and helped define the garden. Stables were usually the farthest removed outbuilding from the house. A red-and-white milk cow was the only permanent resident of Faris’s stables during the 1790s, but they served as temporary home to the horses of guests at the inn. Several of Faris’s neighbors had “chaise houses” separate from their horse stables, to contain their carriages. Not one to miss an opportunity, Faris planted a few tall holyhocks, Alcea rosea, near his stable in 1801.

Dung Fertilizer

Faris planted most of his kitchen garden beds and some flowers near his stables, as contemporary Chesapeake garden writhers advised. Dung was the fertilizer of choice in the 18th-century. Faris consistently used dung from his own stables and employed neighborhood haulers to bring extra cartloads of “tan” to his garden throughout the growing season.
18C English Woodcut

Farmers in the Chesapeake countryside sometimes dug fenced dung pits near their “cow houses” to systematically collect future garden fertilizer.

Craftsman's Hog Pen

Also producing dung were the pigs Faris raised in a hog pen on the rear of his grounds, near his peach tree. Faris cooked his peach-flavored pork as it was killed and also smoked it.

From the beginning of the 18th-century, travelers throughout the Chesapeake reported, colonists in the region intentionally fed peaches to their pigs to produce a sweeter-flavored meat. On October 3, 1777, British soldier Thomas Hughes reported that “at this time fruit is in such plenty that their hogs are fed on apples, peaches and chestnuts.”
18C English Woodcut

One of the gentlemen who bought flower bulbs from William Faris, Captain John O’Donnell (1749-1805), settled in Baltimore, naming his country seat after his favorite port of call, Canton. An account of Canton given by a visitor noted that O’Donnell had planted orchards of red peaches on his 2500-acre estate in hopes of manufacturing brandy for trade but had met with limited financial success. “for although Mr. O’Donnell’s orchard had come to bear in great perfection and he had stills and the other necessary apparatus, the profit proved so small that he suffered the whole to go to waste and his pigs to consume the product.”
18C English Woodcut

Smokehouse

In addition to pigs and peaches, the rear of Faris’s lot also contained his smokehouse, which was surrounded by plum, pear, mulberry, cherry, almond and apple trees. Grape vines grew in one corner, near the vegetable beds. Currant and gooseberry bushes dotted the back lot as well.

Faris used his one-story brick smokehouse (12 by 10 feet) to smoke both pigs and fish. Smoking dehydrated the meat, added a desirable taste of wood smoke to the final product, and allowed the fish and pork to be kept longer.

One traveler through Maryland in the 1790’s wrote, “The greater number of people in America live on salt fish and smoked bacon: and the reason why they smoke their bacon and fish, is, that there are many sorts of reptiles that would absolutely destroy it, were it not for the smoke.”

Pots

Even though economy of space demanded that Faris use his grounds in a practical way, he took pride in decorating special focal points in his garden with several kinds of moveable plant containers. His favorites were earthenware pots. He regularly refilled all of his plant containers with “new dirt.”

Faris singled out the plants he considered rare to put in pots around his grounds, annually potting Jerusalem cherry trees, ice plants, egg plants, and sensitive plants, as did Thomas Jefferson. Faris also regularly displayed mignonette, tuberose, asters, anemones, polyanthus, rosemary, hyacinths, chrysanthemums, and his favorite tulips in containers.
18C English Woodcut

He used the pots to store his fragile plants away from the Annapolis winters, dutifully recording in his diary each year, “I moved the Potts into the seller for the Winter.” Sometimes he euphemistically referred to his cellar as “the greenhouse.”

Faris had no greenhouse; but his Annapolis neighbor Dr. Upton Scott (1724-1814) did, and the two men exchanged hundreds of plants. A contemporary wrote of Scott, “He is fond of botany and has a number of rare plants and shrubs in his greenhouse and garden.”

Faris’s gardens also sported large flower-filled wooden half-barrels, which dotted the grounds. He called these unpainted containers “casks” and artfully planted them with ice plants, egg plants, Jerusalem cherries, tulips, wallflowers, India pinks, and tuberose. Faris made no attempt to move his casks indoors for the winter season but did regularly change the earth in the containers. It is likely that these casks were old shipping barrels from the Annapolis docks.

Science

The more mundane plants Faris raised in simple rectangular wooden boxes. These were strictly utilitarian containers, not the more ornamental wooden boxes holding orange and lemon trees that could be found in the greenhouses of larger Chesapeake plantations of the period.

In these boxes Faris also experimented with growing new varieties of plants, from cabbages to tulips. In his experiments, Faris grafted and selectively cross-pollinated plants. Gardening in the 18th-century Chesapeake allowed every man to become his own man of science or naturalist, as the Italian Renaissance model promoted.

Garden Records - A Diary!

This artisan, innkeeper, and gardener was keenly aware of the changes in nature’s seasons that intimately affected the success or failure of his gardening efforts. He even noted in his diary when the martins returned to Annapolis.
A Page From William Faris's Diary. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.

Like Washington’s and Jefferson’s records, his diary recorded his observations of the weather, and he consistently referred to his notes when new plants broke through the ground, or when the bloom---or when the failed---in order to compare present efforts with previous attempts.

Like his wealthier and well-educated gardening colleagues, William Faris used his garden to project his abstract ideas into nature. He and his neighbors used their gardens to understand the order of nature and to subject it to their own order in terms of design, plantings, and processes. 

Thank you to my friend Dr. Jean B. Russo for her images of William Faris items. See The Diary of William Faris: The Daily Life of an Annapolis Silversmith. edited by Mark Letzer and Jean B. Russo. Published by the Maryland Historical Society in 2003.