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‘If well managed, nothing is more beautiful than the kitchen garden: the earliest blossoms come there: we shall in vain seek for flowering shrubs in March, and early April, to equal the peaches, nectarines, apricots, and plums; late in April, we shall find nothing to equal the pear and the cherry; and, in May, the dwarf, or espalier, apple trees, are just so many immense garlands of carnations. The walks are unshaded: they are not greasy or covered with moss, in the spring of the year, like those in the shrubberies: to watch the progress of crops is by no means unentertaining to any rational creature; and the kitchen- garden gives you all this long before the ornamental part of the garden affords you anything worth looking at.’

William Cobbett: The English Gardener 1829

Old School Gardener