translation into Middle English verse, as On husbondrie (c. 1420), of Palladius, the Late Roman author of Opus agriculturae, sometimes known as De re rustica. This covers mostly farming rather than gardening. The first version of Thomas Tusser's poem Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry was published in 1557, and William Lawson's The Country Housewife's Garden followed in 1608, with a further work in 1618; both were in the library of John Winthrop the Younger, governor of Connecticut 50 years later. Tusser's books were in simple rhyming verse, and notable for assuming that the gardening among his middle-class audience would normally be the province of the housewife, though many may have needed to have the book read to them by their husbands. Tips and tasks were given for every month of the year. The book was hugely popular and often reprinted, remaining a favourite until 1800 at least. 17th century This was the century of growing French dominance in large-scale gardening, and the Mollet dynasty of royal gardeners published books with much on garden design. Claude Mollet (d. 1649), did the garden sections in his friend Olivier de Serres' (Paris 1600), a book mainly dealing with agriculture. Mollet's own Théâtre des plans et jardinages, was published by his son in 1652, after his death, but had been first written around 1613-1615, and some manuscript copies had probably been in circulation. Claude's son André Mollet (d. before 1665) spent most of his career working for royalty in Sweden, England and the Netherlands. His Le Jardin de plaisir ("The Pleasure Garden") , was published in Stockholm in 1651, illustrated with meticulous engravings after his own designs, and which, with an eye to a European aristocratic clientele, he published in Swedish, French and German. In his designs the rich patterning of parterres, which had formerly been a garden feature of interest in isolation, was for the first time arranged in significant relation to the plan of the house. Mollet's designs coordinated the elements of scythed turf—making its debut here as an essential element of garden design—with gravel paths, basins and fountains, parterres, bosquets and allées. Among the many subjects that John Evelyn published about, gardening was an increasing obsession, and he left a huge manuscript on the subject that was not printed until 2001. He published several translations of French gardening books, and his Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees (1664) was very