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Case nine

Gardening for the people

The Rev. John Laurence (1668-1732), was the first of sixteen clergymen to write important gardening books in the 18th century. His first work The Clergy-Man's Recreation (1714) aimed to preserve the health of clergy by encouraging them to leave their studies and gain moderate exercise in practical gardening, especially the cultivation of fruit against protective walls. Its success led him to write The Gentleman's Recreation (1716) and The Fruit-Garden Kalendar (1718), all three appearing in an omnibus edition entitled Gardening Improv'd (1718). To his gentlemen readers, Laurence advocated the modern philosophy that ‘Though we may safely do many things, which Nature would not or could not do; yet we are never to hope for Success, if we do any thing contrary to Nature' (p. 16).

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Richard Bradley (late 1680s-1732) became the first Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge in 1724, but the position carried no stipend and he gave no lectures. Instead he pioneered garden journalism, writing at least 25 books between 1714 and his death in 1732. As a botanist he was the first to record insect pollination in flowers, and he wrote the first book on succulent plants (1717). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1712. As a cookery writer he later compiled the popular Country Housewife and Lady's Director (1727, 1732). For well-to-do gardeners and farmers he started a monthly magazine A General Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening in 1721. Although this ended mid-1722, it was re-published as a three volume work in 1724 and in two volumes again in 1726. Bradley was an innovative and intensely practical gardener, devising for example new techniques for forcing fruit, and publishing detailed plans and costings for a kitchen garden to feed a family of seven or eight.

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