A recent writer has asked the question: What did Shakespeare know of gardening? and thereupon sat down to examine his works for the evidences, which he found to be as follows: Of English wild flowers, he mentions about fifteen, alluding to some only once or twice, to others a dozen times. Of exotic flowers, or such as were cultivated in the scanty gardens of his period, more than 300 years ago, he mentions nine or ten; of trees and shrubs, exotics included, there are notices of about twenty-five. Of fruits, about thirty. Vegetables, about equal proportion. Products of the nature of spices and medicines are mentioned to the extent of about a score. The total is thus about 150, or more - considerably more than double that of the total to be found in Milton. Not even Virgil in his Georgics or -Aeneid has made mention of as many. It must be remembered that in the days of Shakespeare, there were no "floras" to consult; botany had not yet become a study, and wild flowers few, or no 'discriminating observers - and all his observations were from nature, and expressed in the popular language.