It is difficult to estimate whether the charitable munificence of the Company is altogether as great a public benefit, from a health point of view, as retaining some of the garden for public use would have been. Men are naturally so conservative, that, because they have been content to talk and do business, and even search for a breath of air, in the crowded streets on the hottest summer days, it has probably never occurred to them that a few minutes on a seat under shady trees would have “refreshed their spirits,” and the addition of better air improved their brain powers more effectually. The idea of a garden city is such a new one that it is not fair to judge by such standards. Distances are now much reduced by electricity above and below ground, so that the necessity of crowding business houses together to save time is not so all-important. When the City gardens became built over, no doubt the newer and more sanitary conditions were felt amply to compensate for the loss of oxygen given off by the growing plants, and the preservation of air spaces in the midst of crowded centres had not occurred to men’s minds. London four or five hundred years ago must indeed have needed its gardens. The squalor and dirt of its cramped streets, the noisy clamour, the rough and uncouth manners, are unpleasing to realise. The contrast of the little walled gardens, where the women could sit, and the busy men find a little quiet from the noise outside, must indeed have been precious. The profession of a gardener, however, did not seem to soften their behaviour, for some of the worst offenders were gardeners. So serious did the “scurrility, clamour, and nuisance of the gardeners and their servants,” who sold their fruit and vegetables in the market, become, that they disturbed the Austin Friars at their prayers in the church hard by, and caused so much annoyance to the people living near, that in 1345 a petition, to have these “gardeners of the earls, barons, bishops, and citizens” removed to another part of the town, was presented to the Lord Mayor. Later on, gardening operations in the City and for six miles round were restricted to freemen and apprentices of the Gardeners’ Company, and the sale of vegetables was almost exclusively in their hands. Their guild had power to seize and destroy all bad plants, or those exposed for sale by unlicensed persons. The Gardeners’ Company, incorporated in 1605, had a second charter in 1616, and a confirmation of their rights in 1635, and it still remains one of the City companies.