The character of this modest and candid man, (Switzer), has
found an able advocate in the honest pen of Mr. Johnson, who, in p. 159
of his History of Gardening, after noticing the acrimony of his
opponents, observes, "Neglect has pursued him beyond the grave, for his
works are seldom mentioned or quoted as authorities of the age he lived
in. To me he appears to be the best author of his time; and if I was
called upon to point out the classic authors of gardening, _Switzer_
should be one of the first on whom I would lay my finger. His works
evidence him at once to have been a sound, practical horticulturist, a
man well versed in the botanical science of the day, in its most
enlarged sense." Mr. Johnson enumerates the distinct contents of each
chapter in the Iconologia--the Kitchen Gardener--and the Fruit Gardener.

Page 59.--The Tortworth Chesnut was growing previous to the Norman
Conquest. It fixes the boundary of a manor. Even in the reign of
Stephen, it was known as the great chesnut of Tortworth.

Page 62.--The author of this treatise, who is a zealous orchardist, is
lavish in his praise of a then discovered apple-tree and its produce,
"for the little cot-house to which it belongs, together with the little
quillet in which it stands, being several years since mortgaged for ten
pounds, the fruit of this tree alone, in a course of some years, freed
the house and garden, and its more valuable self, from that burden." A
neighbouring clergyman, too, was equally lavish, for he "talked of it in
all conversations," and such was his praise of it, that every one "fell
to admiration." Mr. Stafford is so pleased with this reverend
gentleman's zeal, in extending the cultivation of this apple, (_the
Royal Wilding_) that he says, "I could really wish, whenever the
original tree decayeth, his statue carved out of the stump, by the most
expert hand, and overlaid with gold, may be erected near the public
road, in the place of it, at the common charge of the country." He
celebrates also another apple, which "in a pleasant conversation was
named by a gentleman _super-celestial_. Another gentleman, in allusion
to _Pynes_, the name of my house, and to the common story of the West
India pineapple, (which is said to be the finest fruit in the world, and
to represent every exquisite flavour that is known), determined that it
should be called the _pyne-apple_; and by either of these names it is
talked of when pleasantry and conversation bring