John Worlidge, on the Pleasures of Gardens and Orchards

“As to Gardens and Orchards themselves, they have been esteem’d the purest of humane pleasures, and the created refreshments of the Spirits of man : for the exercises of planting, grafting, pruning, and Walking in them, very much tendeth to Salubrity, as also doth the wholesome Airs found in them, which have been experienced not onely to cure several Distempers incident to our nature, but to tend towards the prolongation of life.”

John Worlidge, Vinetum Britannicum: Or a Treatise of Cider and Other Wines and Drinks,
Second Impression (1678)

I couldn’t agree more Mr Worlidge. I really couldn’t.