Sandy's Garden ... Of Gardeners and Cottagers

He left a fine selection of goodies for me to wake up to on Christmas morning.

Sadly, the days when I used to be awake by six, bursting with excitement to discover what was in my Christmas stocking, are long gone: but, although it may be past eight o’clock on a cold winter’s morning ere I surface on December 25th nowadays, I still feel a slight frisson of anticipation as I retrieve presents addressed to me from beneath the tree, wondering what the wrappings conceal.

The content of one of the parcels was obvious as soon as the package was handled; it could only be a book. And it proved to be a recently-published facsimile of The Scots Gard’ner, describing itself the dust jacket … a reproduction of the original title page … as being ‘in two parts, The First of Contriving and Planting GARDENS, ORCHARDS, AVENUES, GROVES With new and profitable ways of Levelling; and how to Measure and Divide Land; The Second of the Propagation and Improvement of FORREST, and FRUIT-TREES, KITCHEN-HEARBS, ROOTS and FRUITS; With some Physick Hearbs, Shrubs and Flowers’ … to use the capitalisation and spelling of the original. The cover then goes on to promise an ‘Appendix shewing how to use the Fruits of the Garden; Whereunto is annexed The GARD’NERS KALENDAR’ the whole being ‘Published for the Climate of Scotland By John Reid, Gard’ner.’ The publisher then adds his description in these words: ‘Edinburgh, Printed by DAVID LINDSAY, and his Partners, at the foot of Heriot’s Bridge, 1683.’ I should say that the facsimile edition was published in 2015 by The Library of Innerpeffray … go to www.innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk for further information.

Now the Scots Gard’ner of the title is not what we today would expect … an amateur enthusiast for things horticultural. In the late seventeenth century, such a person would have been described as a ‘cottager’ … ‘a person who has the tenure of a cottage, usually also the occupant,’ to quote Wiktionary, which also gives a latter-day definition which we won’t discuss in these columns! The author of this book, John Reid, was, to quote from the back cover of the dust jacket, ‘One of the most successful garden designers of his day, and designed for the new town houses of Edinburgh as well as the estates of Perthshire, including Drummond Castle Gardens.’ He was the consummate professional gardener whose skills extended to the use of garden produce in the kitchen, leading to his book being described as ‘the first Scots cookery book.’ One might also argue that the cottager would know how to make use of the produce of the cottage garden in the kitchen: but to the best of my knowledge no cottager published a book on such matters before recent times; and it seems unlikely that many seventeenth century cottagers would either have had access to Reid’s book or the necessary education to read it.

However, literacy was much more widespread by the middle of the nineteenth century when Polmont Horticultural Society was instituted, as were many similar societies. And the Polmont society’s show schedule … the catalogue of competitive classes for flowers, vegetables, fruits, domestic produce and handicrafts … carried the words ‘open to all’ on its cover from its inception, as indeed it does to this day. This did not mean that the show was open to competitors from furth of Polmont. It meant that it was for gardeners … professionals … and cottagers, or amateurs, there being distinct competitions for the two categories. Today the word ‘cottager’ has virtually disappeared, the number of professional gardeners has declined sharply and amateur enthusiasts have become gardeners. I suppose that’s progress.