_How for the entertainment of any great Person, in any Parke, or other
place of pleasure, where Sommer-bowers are made, to make a compleat
Garden in two or three dayes._
If the honest English husbandman, or any other, of what quallity soeuer,
shall entertaine any Noble personage, to whom hee would giue the delight
of all strange contentment, either in his Parke, or other remote place
of pleasure, neere vnto Ponds, Riuer, or other waters of cleerenesse,
after hee hath made his arbors and Summer-bowers to feast in, the
fashion whereof is so common that euery labourer can make them, hee
shall then marke out his garden-plot, bestowing such sleight fence
thereon as hee shall thinke fit: then hee shall cast forth his alleys,
and deuide them from his quarters, by paring away the greene-swarth with
a paring spade, finely, and euen, by a direct line (for a line must euer
be vsed in this worke) then hauing store of labourers (after the
vpper-most swarth is taken away) you shall cast vp the quarters, and
then breaking the mould and leuelling it, you shall make sad the earth
againe, then vpon your quarters you shall draw forth either Knots,
Armes, or any other deuise which shall be best pleasing to your fancie,
as either knots with single or double trayles, or other emblemicall
deuise, as Birds, Beasts, and such like: and in your knots where you
should plant hearbes, you shall take greene-sods of the richest grasse,
and cutting it proportionably to the knot, making a fine trench, you
shall lay in your sod, and so ioyning sod to sod close and arteficially,
you shall set forth your whole knot, or the portrayture of your armes,
or other deuise, and then taking a cleane broome that hath not formerly
beene swept withall, you shall brush all vncleanenesse from the grasse,
and then you shall behold your knot as compleat, and as comely as if it
had beene set with hearbes many yeeres before. Now for the portrayture
of any liuing thing, you shall cut it forth, ioyning sod vnto sod, and
then afterward place it into the earth. Now if within this plot of
ground which you make your garden piece there be either naturall or
arteficiall mounts or bankes vpon them, you may in this selfe-same
manner with greene sods set forth a flight, either at field or riuer, or
the manner of hunting of any chase, or any story, or other deuise that
you please, to the infinit admiration of all them which shall behold it:
onely in working against mounts or bankes you must obserue to haue many
small pinnes, to stay your worke and keepe your sods from slipping one
from another, till such time as you haue made euery thing fast with
earth, which you must rame very close and hard: as for Flowers, or such
like adorments, you may the morning before, remoue them with their earth
from some other garden, and plant them at your best pleasure. And thus
much for a garden to be made in the time of hasty necessity.