The book is curiously arranged, for on one page we have "the practice of Dodoen," and on the opposite "the practises of others for the same Phisike helpes, collected and presented to the Author of this Treatise." There are directions for each month, and each is headed by a motto. The twelve mottoes, when read together, form the following quaint rhyme:-- "January. With this fyre I warme my hand February. With this spade I digge my land March. Here I cut my Vine spring April. Here I hear the birds sing May. I am as fresh as bird on bough June. Corn is weeded well enough July. With this sithe my grasse I mowe August. Here I cut my corne full lowe September. With this flaile I earne my bread October. Here I sowe my wheats so red November. With this axe I kill my swine December. And here I brew both ale and wine." There are some things in this little handbook worthy of remembrance, notably an imaginative passage in which the author tells us that "herbs that grow in the fields are better than those which grow in gardens, and of those herbs which grow in the fieldes, such as grow on hilles are best." FOOTNOTES: [59] Then "Marie Valence Hall." (Founded in 1347 by Marie widow of Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke.) [60] It has been suggested that Turner was imprisoned for his refusal to subscribe to the Six Articles and that he recanted to save his life. But, as Dr. B. D. Jackson has pointed out, Turner was made of sterner stuff and his whole life and writings are a standing contradiction to any such supposition. [61] One of the earliest botanic gardens in Europe was at Bologna. It was founded by Luca Ghini. It is interesting to see how frequently Turner in his herbal quotes Ghini, and cites his authority against other commentators. Luca Ghini was the first who erected a separate professorial chair at Bologna for Botanical Science. He himself lectured on Dioscorides for twenty-eight years. He was the preceptor of Caesalpinus and Anquillara, two of the soundest critics on botanical writings of that age. The most famous public botanical gardens in Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were the following. I give them in the order in which they were made:-- 1533--Padua. 1544--Florence. 1547--Bologna. 1570--Paris. 1598--Montpellier. 1628--Jena. 1632--Oxford. 1637--Upsala. 1673--Chelsea. 1675--Edinburgh. 1677--Leyden. 1682--Amsterdam. 1725--Utrecht. The first botanic garden in America was founded in Philadelphia by John Bartram, the great American botanist, in the middle of the eighteenth century. [62] Gesner had a high opinion of Turner, of whom he wrote:-- "Ante annos 15, aut circiter cum Anglicus ex Italia rediens me salutaret (Turnerus) is fuerit vir excellentis tum in re medica tum aliis plerisque disciplinis doctrinae aut alius quisquam vix satis memini."--_De Herbis Lunariis_, 1555.