The books from which both professional and amateur gardeners gained their instruction are full of delightful information, and to us are quaintly expressed. Many of them were standard authorities for several generations and went through various editions, which, as time went on, were touched up by a more recent authority. One of these well-known garden authors was Thomas Hill, who wrote under the peculiar name of Didymus Mountain; another was Gervase Markham whose "Country Farm," published in London in 1616 (the year of Shakespeare's death), often passes for an original work. "The Country Farm," however, was an earlier book, and a French one at that, called "La Maison Rustique," published in Paris in 1600 by Charles Stevens and John Liébault, "doctors of physicke." This was translated into English very soon after its appearance by Richard Surflet and published under the title of "The Country Farm." It became an extremely popular book before Gervase Markham took hold of it. Markham became a great authority on all garden topics and wrote and adapted many books on the subject. From his edition of "The Country Farm" we learn that "It is a commendable and seemly thing to behold out at a window many acres of ground well-tilled and husbanded; but yet it is much more to behold fair and comely proportions, handsome and pleasant arbors, and, as it were, closets, delightful borders of lavender, rosemary, box and other such-like; to hear the ravishing music of an infinite number of pretty, small birds, which continually, day and night, do chatter and chant their proper and natural branch-songs upon the hedges and trees of the garden; and to smell so sweet a nosegay so near at hand, seeing that this so fragrant a smell cannot but refresh the lord of the farm exceedingly when going out of his bedchamber in the morning after sunrise; and while as yet the clear and pearl-like dew doth perch on to the grass he giveth himself to hear the melodious music of the bees which do fill the air with a most acceptable sweet and pleasant harmony.