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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

mnl

J L161— O-1096

AN

ENCYCLOPEDIA

OF

GARDENING;

COMPRISING THE

THEORY AND PRACTICE

HORTICULTURE, FLORICULTURE, ARBORICULTURE,

AND

LANDSCAPE-GARDENING,

INCLUDING

ail tit latest Jmpro&ementg ;

A GENERAL HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ALL COUNTRIES;

AND A STATISTICAL VIEW OF ITS PRESENT STATE,

WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR ITS FUTURE PROGRESS, IN THE BRITISH ISLES.

By J. C. LOUDON, F.L.S. H.S. &c.

ILLUSTRATED WITH

MANY HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD BY BRANSTON.

jftfrt) GBtiitiom

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

LONGMAN, &EES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN,

PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1827.

London :

Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode,

New-Strcet-Square.

n

lo30.3 I 827

PREFACE.

The term Encyclopaedia, applied to a single art, is meant to convey the idea of as complete a treatise on that art as can be composed at the time of its publication. No art has been more extended in its objects, or improved in its practices within the last fifty years than Gardening. During that period numerous books have been written in various departments of the subject ; but in no work has the whole Art of Gardening been included. The only books which have any pretensions to completeness are the Gardener's Dictionaries : but though some of these are copious on the culture of plants, and others, in botanical description ; yet in none is the subject of design, taste, and the arrangement of gardens, adequately treated of; and scarcely any thing is contained in these books, either on the History or Statistics of Gardening. In the voluminous edition of Miller's Dic- tionary, by Professor Martyn, though the title announces " the addi- tion of all the modern improvements of landscape-gardening," there is not an article bearing that title throughout the work ; nor a single quotation or abridgement from the writings of Wheatley, G. Mason, Price, Repton, or any modern author, on the art of laying out grounds.

The Encyclopaedia of Gardening now submitted to the public treats of every branch of the Art, and includes every modern im- provement to the present year.

Though this work, like every other of the kind, can only be consi- dered as a compilation from books, yet, on various subjects, especially in what relates to Gardening History and Statistics, it was found ad- visable to correspond with a number of persons both at home and abroad. The favours of these Correspondents are here thankfully acknowledged; and their farther assistance, as well as that of every Reader willing to correct an error or supply a deficiency, is earnestly entreated, in order to render any future edition of the work as per- fect as possible.

Besides modern books, it became necessary to consult some com- paratively ancient and scarce works only to be met with in par- ticular collections. Our respectful acknowledgments are, on this

A 2

IV

PREFACE.

account, due to the Council and Secretary of the Linnaean Society ; to the Council and Secretary of the Horticultural Society ; to Robert Brown, Esq. the possessor of the Banksian library ; and to William Forsyth, Esq., whose collection of British works on Gardening is more than usually complete.

It remains only to mention, as a key to this work, that to save room, the prenoms and other additions to names of persons are not inserted ; only contracted titles of the books referred to are given ; and the names of gardens or country residences are mentioned, with- out, in many cases, designating their local situation. By turning to the General Index, the names of persons will be found, with the addition of their prenoms and other titles, where known, at length ; and there the abridged titles of books are also given complete, and the names of residences, accompanied by that of the county or country in which they are situated. The botanical nomenclature which has been followed is that of Sweet's Hortus Suburbanus Lon* dinensis, with only one or two exceptions ; the reasons for which are given where they occur. The systematic names of insects, or other animals, or of minerals, are generally those of Linnaeus : some ex- ceptions are also noted. In various parts of the work etymological and other explanations will be found, which, to one class of readers, may be unnecessary. But it is to be considered that we address ourselves to Practical Gardeners as well as to the Patrons of Gar- dening ; and our opinion is, that to enlighten, and generally to raise the intellectual character of the former, will ultimately be found the- most efficient mode of improving them in their profession, and thus rendering them more truly valuable to the latter.

By referring to the Kalendarial Index, those parts of this work which treat of Garden Culture and Management may be consulted monthly, as the operations require to be performed ; and by recourse to the General Index, the whole may be consulted in detached por- tions, as in a Dictionary of Gardening.

Although this second edition forms a less bulky volume than the first, yet it contains considerably more printed matter ; besides above a hundred new engravings. These important additions we have been enabled to make by printing all those parts of the work which may be considered as of secondary importance, in a smaller type than that of the general text.

J. C. L.

Bayswater, April 8, 1824.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

GARDENING CONSIDERED IN RESPECT TO ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT STATE AMONG DIFFERENT NATIONS, GOVERNMENTS, AND CLIMATES.

BOOK I.

HISTORY OF GARDENING AMONG ANCIENT AND MODERN NATIONS.

Chap. I. Page

Of the Origin and Progress of Gardening in the earliest ages of Antiquity, or from the 10th century before the vulgar sera to the found- ation of the Roman Empire - - 3

I. Of the fabulous Gardens of Antiquity - ib.

II. Jewish Gardens. B.C. 1500. - - 4

III. Phaeacian Gardens. B.C. 900. - - ib.

IV. Babylonian or Assyrian Gardens. B.C.

2000. - - - - 5

V. Persian Gardens. B. C. 500. - - 6

VI. Grecian Gardens. B. C. 300. - - ib.

VII. Gardening in the ages of Antiquity, as

to Fruits, Culinary Productions, and Flowers - - 7

Chap. II.

Chronological History of Gardening, from the time of the Roman Kings, in the sixth cen- tury B. C. to the Decline and Fall of the Empire in the fifth century of our sera - 9

I. Roman Gardening as an Art of Design and

Taste - ... ib.

II. Roman Gardening considered as to the Cul-

ture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament 13

III. Roman Gardening in respect to its Pro-

ducts for the Kitchen and the Dessert ib.

IV. Roman Gardening considered in respect

to the Propagation and Planting of Tim- ber-trees and Hedges - - - 14

V. Roman Gardening as a Science, and as to

the Authors it produced - - 15

Chap. III.

Chronological History of Gardening, in conti- nental Europe from the Time of the Romans to the present Day, or from A. D. 500 to A. D. 1833. - . . -

I. Of the Revival, Progress, and present State

of Gardening in Italy

1. Italian Gardening, in respect to Design

and Taste

2. Italian Gardening in respect to the Cul-

ture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament 5. Italian Gardening in respect to its Products for the Kitchen and the Dessert

4. Italian Gardening, in respect to the plant-

ing of Timber-trees and Hedges

5. Italian Gardening, as empirically practised

6. Italian Gardening, as a Science, and as to

the Authors it has produced

II. Of the Revival, Progress, and present State

of Gardening in Holland and Flanders -

1. Dutch Gardening, as an Art of Design and

Taste -

2. Dutch Gardening, in respect to the Cul- . ture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament

3. Dutch Gardening in respect to the Cul-

ture of Fruits and Culinary Vegetables -

16 ft

- ib.

'21

'J I 25

- ib.

26

ib.

Page

4. Dutch Gardening, in respect to the plant

ing of Timber-trees and Hedges

5. Dutch Gardening, as empirically practised

6. Dutch Gardening, as a Science, and in re-

spect to the Authors it has produced

III. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of

Gardening in France

1. French Gardening, as an Art of Design

and Taste

2. French Gardening, in respect to the Cul

ture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament

3. French Gardening, in respect to its horti-

cultural Productions

4. French Gardening, in respect to the plant-

ing of Timber-trees and Hedges

5. French Gardening, as empirically prac-

tised ...

6. French Gardening, as a Science, and as to

the Authors it has produced

IV. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of

Gardening in Germany

1. German Gardening, as an Art of Design

and Taste

2. German Gardening, in respect to the Cul

ture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament

3. German Gardening, in respect to horticul-

tural Productions

4. German Gardening, as to planting Timber-

trees and Hedges -

5. German Gardening, as empirically prac-

tised ....

6. German Gardening, as a Science, and as to

the Authors it has produced

V. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of

Gardening in Switzerland

VI. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of

Gardening in Sweden and Norway

VII. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of

Gardening in Russia

1. Russian Gardening, as an Art of Design

and Taste -

2. Russian Gardening, in respect to the Cul-

ture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament

3. Russian Gardening, in respect to its horti-

cultural Productions

4. Russian Gardening, in respect to the Cul-

ture of Timber-trees and Hedges

5. Russian Gardening, as empirically prac-

tised - . .

6. Russian Gardening, as a Science, and as

to the Authors it has produced - 61

VIII. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State

of Gardening in Poland - - ib.

IX. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of

Gardening in Spain and Portugal - 63

1. Spanish Gardening, as an Art of Design

and Taste - - - 64

2. Spanish and Portuguese Gardening, in ro-

spect to the Culture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament - - 65

3. Spanish and Portuguese Gardening, in re-

spect to its horticultural Productions and Planting - - - 66

X. Of the Rise, Progress, and present state of

Gardening in European Turkey - ib.

A 3

31

S<2

33

- ib.

39

40

4J - ib.

- ib.

47

4fl

60

59

BO

ib.

VI

CONTENTS.

Chap. IV. Page

Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of

Gardening in the British Isles

I. British Gardening, as an Art of Design and

Taste -

1. Gardening in England, as an Art of De

sign and Taste

2. Gardening in Scotland, as an Art of Design

and Taste -

3. Gardening in Ireland, as an Art of Design

and Taste -

II. British Gardening, in respect to the Cul-

ture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament

1. Gardening in England, in respect to the

Culture of Flowers and the Establishment of Botanic Gardens

2. Gardening in Scotland, in respect to the

Culture of Flowers and the Establish- ment of Botanic Gardens

3. Gardening in Ireland, in respect to Flori-

culture and Botanv -

III. British Gardening, in respect to its horti-

cultural Productions -

1. Gardening in England, in respect to its

horticultural Productions

2. Gardening in Scotland, in respect to its

horticultural Productions

3. Gardening in Ireland, in respect to its hor-

ticultural Productions

IV. British Gardening, in respect to the plant-

ing of Timber-trees and Hedges

1. Gardening in England, in respect to the

planting of Timber-trees and Hedges -

2. Gardening in Scotland, in respect to the

planting of Timber-trees and Hedges -

3. Gardening in Ireland, in respect to the

planting of Timber-trees and Hedges -

V. British Gardening, as empirically practised

VI. British Gardening, as a Science, and as to

the Authors it has produced

. 68

69 - ib.

- 80 82

83

- 84

Chap. V.

Page

- ib.

yi

- 92

- ib.

ib. - 93

- 96

Of the present State of Gardening in Ultra- European Countries - - - 97

I. Syrian, Persian, Indian, and African Gar-

dens of modern Times - - 98

II. Chinese Gardening - - 101 HI. Gardeuing in Anglo-North America, or

the United States and British Provinces 104

IV. Gardening in Spanish North America, or

Mexico - - - 106

V. Gardening in South America - - 107

VI. Gardening in the British Colonies, and in

other Foreign Settlements of European Nations - - - ib.

BOOK II.

GARDENING CONSIDERED AS TO ITS PRO- GRESS AND PRESENT STATE UNDER DIF- FERENT POLITICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAI CIRCUMSTANCES.

Chap. I. Page

Gardening as affected by different Forms of Government, Religions, and States of Society 110

I. Gardening as aflected by different Forms of

Government and Religions - - 111

II. Gardening as affected by different States of

Society ... ib.

Chap. II. Gardening as affected by different Climates, - Habits of Life, and Manners - - 112

I. Influence of Climate, in respect to Fruits,

culinary Plants, Flowers, Timber-trees, and horticultural Skill - - 113

II. Influence of Climate and Manners on Gar-

dening, as an Art of Design and Taste - 114

III. Of the Climate and Circumstances of Bri-

tain, in respect to Gardening - - 118

PAUT II.

GARDENING CONSIDERED AS A SCIENCE.

BOOK I.

THE STUDY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.

Chap. I. Page

Origin, Progress, and present State of the Study of Plants - - " lM

Chap. II. Glossology, or the Names of the Parts of Plants 122

Chap. III. Phytography, or the Nomenclature and De- scription of Plants

I. Names of Classes and Orders

II. Names of Genera -

III. Names of Species

IV. Names of Varieties and Subvaneties

V. Descriptions of Plants

VI. Of forming and preserving Herbanans

VII. Of Methods of Study ...

123 ib. ib. 124 125 126 127 128

Chap. IV.

Taxonomy, or the Classifications of Plants - ib-

I. The Hortus Britannicus arranged according

to the Linnaean System - - laO

II. The Hortus Britannicus arranged according

to the Jussieuean System - -133

Chap. V.

Vegetable Organology, or the external Struc- ture of Plants

I. Perfect Plants

1. Conservative Organs

2. Conservative Appendages

3. Reproductive Organs

4. Reproductive Appendages

II. Imperfect Plants

1. Filices, Equisitacese, and Lycopodineae -

2. Musci -

3. Hepaticae

4. Algae and Lichenae

5. Fungi

138

ib.

ib. 139

ib. 140

ib.

ib. 141

ib. 142

Chap. VI. Page

Vegetable Anatomy, or the internal Structure of Plants - - - 142

I. Decomposite Organs - - ib.

II. Composite Organs - - - 144

III. Elementary or Vascular Organs - 146

Chap. VII.

Vegetable Chemistry, or primary Principles of Plants - - - - 147

I. Compound Products - - ib.

II. Simple Products ... 157

Chap. VIII.

Functions of Vegetables - . lib.

I. Germination of the Seed - . 158

II. Food of the vegetating Plant - .160

III. Process of Vegetable Nutrition - - 165

IV. Process of Vegetable Developement - 172

V. Anomalies of Vegetable Developement - 177

VI. Of the Sexuality of Vegetables - .181

VII. Impregnation of the Seed - . 182

VIII. Changes consequent upon Impregnation 183

IX. The propagation of the Species . -184

X. Causes limiting the Propagation of the Spe-

cies .... 186

XI. Evidence and Character of Vegetable Vi-

tality - - - 187

Chap. IX.

Vegetable Pathology, or the Diseases and Casu- alties of Vegetable Life - - 191

I. Wounds and Accidents - - ib.

II. Diseases - - - 192

III. Natural Decay - - - 195

Chap. X.

Vegetable Geography and History, or the Dis- tribution of Vegetables relatively to the Earth and to Man ... 196

I. Geographical Distribution of Vegetables - 197

II. Phvsical Distribution of Vegetables - ib.

III. Civil Causes affecting the Distribution of

Plants - - - 202

CONTENTS.

Vll

Page

IV. Characteristic or Picturesque Distribution

of Vegetables ... 203

V. Systematic Distribution of Vegetables . 205

VI. Economical Distribution of Vegetables -206

VII. Arithmetical Distribution of Vegetables - ib.

VIII. Distribution of the British Flora, indige-

nous and exotic - - ib.

Chap. XI.

Origin of Culture, as derived from the Study of Vegetables - - * - 214

BOOK II.

OP THE NATURAL AGENTS OF VEGETABLE GROWTH AND CULTURE.

Chap. I.

Of Earths and Soils

I. Of the Geological Structure of the Globe and

the Formation of Earths and Soils

I I. Classification and Nomenclature of Soils -

III. Of discovering the Qualities of Soils

1. Of discovering the Qualities of Soils by

means of the Plants which grow on them -

2. Of discovering the Qualities of Soils by

chemical Analysis - -

3. Of discovering the Qualities of a Soil

mechanically and empirically

IV. Of the Uses of the Soil to Vegetables

V. Of the Improvement of Soils

- 217

ib.

219 221

ib.

- 222 223 226 ib.

1. Pulverisation . 2. Of the Improvement of Soils by Compres- sion - - - -228

3. Of the Improvement of Soils by Aeration

or Fallowing ... ib.

4. Alteration of the constituent Parts of Soils 229

5. Changing the Condition of Lands, in re-

spect to Water - - - 231

6. Changing the Condition of Lands, in re-

spect to Atmospherical Influence - 232

7. Rotation of Crops - - 233

Chap. II. Of Manures - - - 234

I. Of Manures of Animal and Vegetable Origin 235

1. The Theory of the Operation of Manures

of Animal and Vegetable Origin - ib.

2. Of the different Species of Manures of

Animal and Vegetable Origin - 236

3. Of the fermenting, preserving, and apply-

ing of Manures of Animal and Vegetable Origin - - - 241

II. Of Manures of Mineral Origin - -243

1. Theory of the Operation of Mineral Ma-

nures ■ - - - ib.

2. Of the different Species of Mineral Ma-

nures ... 244

Chap. III.

Of the Agency of Heat, Light, Electricity,

and Water, in Vegetable Culture

I. Of Heat and Light

II. Of Electricity

III. Of Water

249 . ib. . 253 - ib.

Chap. IV. Of the Agency of the Atmosphere in Vegeta- tion - - - - 254

I. Of the Elements of the Atmosphere - - ib.

II. Ofthe Means of prognosticating the Weather 264

III. Of the Climate of Britain - -266

BOOK III.

MECHANICAL AGENTS EMPLOYED IN GAR- DENING.

Chap. I.

Implements of Gardening

I. Tools

II. Instruments

1 Instruments of Operation

2. Instruments of Direction

3. Instruments of Designation

III. Utensils

1. Utensils of Preparation and Deportation

Page

2. Utensils of Culture - - - 283

3. Utensils of Protection - - 286

4. Utensils for entrapping Vermin - 287

IV. Machines - - - ib.

1. Machines of Labor - - 288

2. Machines for Vermin, and Defence against

the enemies of Gardens - - 292

3. Meteorological Machines - - 293

V. Various Articles used in Gardening Oper-

ations .... 295

1. Articles of Adaptation - - ib.

2. Articles of Manufacture - - 297

3. Articles of Preparation - - ib.

Chap. II.

Structures used in Gardening - - 298

I. Temporary or Moveable Structures - ib.

1. Structures Portable, or entirely Moveable ib.

2. Structures partly Moveable - - 300

II. Fixed Structures - - - 303

III. Permanent Horticultural Structures -310

1. Ofthe Principles of Design in Hot-houses 311

2. Forms of Hot-house Roofs - - 314

3. Details of the Construction of Rcofs, or

318 . 319

- 322 . 323

- 326

- 328

- 329

III. 1.

- 269
- ib.	II.
- 272	1.
- ib.	2.
- 278	3.
. 280	4.
- 282	5.
- ib.	6

the glazed part of Hot-houses

4. Glazing of Hot-house Roofs

5. Walls and Sheds of Hot-houses

6. Furnaces and Flues

7. Steam Boilers and Tubes

8. Trellises

9. Paths, Pits, Stages, Shelves, Doors, &c. -

10. Details for Water, Wind, and Renewal of

Air - - -331

IV. Mushroom-houses - - 3o2

V. Cold Plant-habitations - - 334

Chap. III.

Edifices used in Gardening - - ib.

I. Economical Buildings ... ib.

II. Anomalous Buildings - - 339

1. Of the Ice-house and its Management - ib.

2. Of the Apiary and the Management of

Bees - - - 341

3. Of the Aviary, and of Menageries, Pisci- naries, &c. ... 346

Decorative Buildings - - 348

Useful Decorative Buildings - - ib.

2. Convenient Decorations - - 355

3. Characteristic Decorations - - 360

Chap. IV. Of the Improvement of the Mechanical Agents of Gardening - - - - 361

BOOK IV.

OF THE OPERATIONS OF GARDENING.

Chap. I. Operations of Gardening, in which Strength is chiefly required in the Operator - - 363

I. Mechanical Operation's common to all Arts

of Manual Labor - - ib.

II. Garden-labors on the Soil - - 364

III. Garden-labors with Plants - -367

Chap. II.

Operations of Gardening in which Skill is more . required than Strength ... 369

I. Of transferring Designs from Ground to

Paper or Memory - - - ib.

II. Of transferring Designs from Paper or

Memory to Ground - - 373

1. Transferring Figures and Designs to plane

Surfaces - - - - - ib.

2. Tranferring Figures and Designs to irregu-

lar Surfaces .... 375

3. Of the Arrangement of Quantities -377

III. Of carrying Designs into Execution - 37S

Chap. III.

Scientific Processes and Operations - - 384 1. Preparation of fermenting Substances for

Hot-beds, Manures, and Composts II. Operations of Propagation ' Propagation by natural Methods Propagation by Layering Propagation by Inarching Propagation by Grafting Propagation by Budding Propagation by Cuttings

ib. 387

ib. 388 390 391 397 399

vin

CONTENTS.

Page

III. Operations of Rearing and Culture - 401

1. Sowing, Planting, and Watering - ib.

2. Transplanting - - - 402 a Pruning - - - 406

4. Training - - - 411

5. Blanching - - 415

IV. Operations for inducing a State of Fruit-

fulness in barren and unblossoming Trees and Plants - - - ib.

V. Operations for retarding or accelerating

Vegetation - 418

1. Operations for retarding Vegetation - ib.

2. Operations for accelerating Vegetation - 419

VI. Operations to imitate warm Climates - 423

VII. Operations of Protection from Atmospher-

ical Injuries ... 424

VIII. Operations relative to Vermin, Diseases,

and other Casualties of Plants and Gardens - - - 426

Page

1. Of the Kinds of Vermin most injurious

to Gardens - - - 426

2. Operations for subduing Vermin - 436

3. Operations relative to Diseases and other

Casualties ... 437

IX. Operations of Gathering, Preserving, and

Keeping - - - 4-38

Chap. IV.

Operations relative to the final Products de- sired of Gardens, and Garden-scenery - 443

I. Of the Vegetable Products desired of Gar-

dens - - - 444

II. Of the Superintendence and Management

of Gardens - - - 445

III. Of the Beauty and Order of Garden-

scenery - - - - 451

PART III.

GARDENING AS PRACTISED IN BRITAIN.

BOOK I.

HORTICULTURE.

Chap. I.

The Formation of a Kitchen-garden

I. Situation

II. Exposure and Aspect

III. Extent

IV. Shelter and Shade

V. Soil

VI. Water

VII. Form

VIII. Walls

IX. Ring-fence and Slip

Page

- ^55

- ib.

- 456

- 457

- 458

- 460

- 463

- 464

- 465

- 472

X. Placing the Culinary Hot-houses and

Melonry - - - - ib.

XI. Laying out the Area - • -473

Chap. II. Of the Distribution of Ffuit-trees in a Kitchen- garden ----- 476

I. Of the Selection and Arrangement of Wall

Fruit-trees - - - - 477

II. Of the Selection and Arrangement of

Espaliers and Dwarf-standards - - 479

III. Of tall Standard Fruit-trees in a Kitchen-

garden . - - - 480

IV. Fruit-shrubs - - - - 481

Chap. III.

Of the Formation and Planting of an Orchard, subsidiary to the Kitchen-garden - - 482

Chap. IV. Of the general Cultivation and Management of a Kitchen-garden

I. Culture and Management of the Soil

II. Manure -

III. Cropping -

IV. Thinning - - -

V. Pruning and Training

VI. Weeding, Stirring the Soil, Protecting,

Supporting, and Shading

VII. Watering -

VIII. Vermin, Insects, Diseases, and Accidents

IX. Gathering and Preserving Vegetables and

Fruits, and sending them to a Distance

X. Miscellaneous Operations of Culture and

Management

485 ib. 486 487 489 490

493 ib.

494

495 - ib.

Chap. V.

Of the general Management of Orchards - 496

1. General Culture - - - J£

TI. Pruning Orchard-trees - - - 49/

III. Of gathering and storing Orchard-fruits - 499

IV. Of packing Orchard and other Fruits for

Carriage ... - 501

Chap. VI. Construction of the Culinary Forcing Struc- tures and Hot-houses - - - 502

Page

I. Of the Construction of the Pinery - -502

II. Of the Construction of the Vinery - 506

III. Construction of the Peach-house -508

IV. Construction of the Cherry-house and Fig-

house - - - 510

V. Of Constructing Hot-houses in Ranges' - ib.

VI. Construction of Culinary Pits, Frames, and

Mushroom-houses - . ib.

VII. Details in the Construction of Culinary

Hot-houses - 512

Chap. VII.

Of the general Culture of Forcing Structures and Culinary Hot-houses

I. Culture of the Pinery

1. Varieties of the Pine and General Mode of

Culture -

2. Soil

3. Artificial Heat -

4. Propagation of the Pine-apple

5. Of rearing the Pine-apple in the Nursing

Department - - -

6. Succession Department

7. Fruiting Department

8. General Directions common to the Three

Departments of Pine-apple Culture

9. Compendium of a Course of Culture

10. Recent Improvements in the Culture of

the Pine-apple

II. Of the Culture of the Vinerv

1. Of the General Culture of the Grape in

Vineries

2. Of particular Modes of cultivating the

Grape, adapted to particular Situations

3. Of Gathering and Keeping forced Grapes

4. Of the Insects and Diseases attendant on

forced or Hot-house Grapes

III. Culture of the Peach-house

IV. Of the Culture of the Cherry-house

V. Of the Culture of the Fig-house

VI. Of the Culture and Forcing of the Cucum-

ber -

VII. Of the Culture of the Melon

VIII. Forcing the Strawberry in Hot-houses,

Pits, and Hot-beds - -

IX. Forcing Asparagus in Pits and Hot-beds

X. Forcing Kidneybeans -*

XI. Forcing Potatoes

XII. Forcing Peas - - -

XIII. Forcing Salads, Pot-herbs, &c.

XIV. Culture of the Mushroom

513 514

ib.

ib. 515 516

517 521 525

531 537

538 541

- ib.

555 556

557 558 563 566

569 580

588 590 592 593 595 596 ib.

Chap. VIII.

Horticultural Catalogue. — Hardy Herbaceous Culinary Vegetables The Cabbage Tribe

White Cabbage

Red Cabbage

Savoy

Brussels Sprouts

Borecole

Cauliflower

7. Broccoli

606

- 607

- ib.

- 610

- ib.

- 611

- A.

- 611!

- H14

CONTENTS.

IX

	Page
8. Of Insects which infest the Cabbage	Tribe 617
II. Leguminous Plants	- 618
1. Pea	- ib.
2. Garden-bean	- 620
3. Kidneybean	- 621
III. Esculent Roots	623
1. Potatoe	- ib.
2. Jerusalem Artichoke	- 628
3. Turnip ...	- ib.
4. Carrot ...	- 630
5. Parsnep ...	- 631
li. Red Beet	- 632
7. Skirret ...	- ib.
8. Scorzonera, or Viper's Grass	- 633
9. Salsify, or Purple Goat's Beard	- ib.
10. Radish	- 634
IV. Spinaceous Plants	- 635
1. Spinage ...	- ib.
2. White Beet	- 636
3. Orache, or Mountain Spinage	- 637
4. Wild Spinage	- ib.
5. New Zealand Spinage	- ib.
6. Sorrel ....	- 638
7. Herb-patience, or Patience-Dock	- 639
V. Alliaceous Plants	- ib.
1. Onion ...	- ib,
2. Leek - -	- 641
3. Chive	- 642
4. Garlic -	- ib.
5. Shallot ....	- ib.
6. Rocambole - -	- 643
VI. Asparaginous Plants	- ib.
1. Asparagus - -	- ib.
2. Sea- kale - - -	- 648
3. Artichoke -	- 650
4. Cardoon, or Chardoon	- 651
5. Rampion -	- 652
6. Hop . ...	- ib.
7. Alisander, or Alexanders	. 653
8. Bladder-Campion	- ib.
9. Thistle	. ib.
VII. Acetarious Plants	- 654
1. Lettuce -	- ib.
2. Endive	- 655
3. Succory, or Wild Endive	. 656
4. Dandetion - - -	- 657
5. Celery -	- ib.
6. Mustard ....	- 660
7. Rape	- ib.
8. Corn-Salad, or Lamb-Lettuce	- ib.
9. Garden- Cress ...	- 661
10. American Cress	- ib.
11. Winter Cress	- 662
12. Water-Cress	- ib.
13. Brook-lime	. 663
14. Garden.rocket	- ib.
15. Scurvy-grass ...	- ib.
lb". Burnet ...	. ib.
17. Wood-Sorrel	• 664
18. Small Salads	- ib.
VIII. Pot-herbs and Garnishings	- ib.
1. Parsley -	- ib.
2. Purslane	- 665
3. Tarragon	- ib.
4. Fennel	. ib.
5. Dill	- 666
6. Chervil	- ib.
7. Horse-radish	- ib.
8. Indian Cress, or Nasturtium	- 667
9. Marigold, or Pot-marigold	- 668
10. Borage	- ib.
IX. Sweet Herbs	. ib.
1. Thyme	. ib.
2. Sage	- 669
3. Clary	- ib.
4. Mint	- 670
5. Marjoram	- ib.
6. Savory	- 671
7. Basil	- ib.
8. Rosemary	- 672
9. Lavender	- ib.
10. Tansy	- ib.
11. Costmary, or Alecost	- 673
X. Plants used in Tarts, Confectionary,	and
Domestic Medicine	- ib
1. Rhubarb	- ib.
2. Pompion and Gourd	- 674
3. Angelica	- 676
4. Anise	- ib.
5. Coriander	- ib.
6. Caraway	- ib.
7. Rue	- 677

Page

- 677

- ib.

8. Hyssop

9. Chamomile

10. Elecampane

11. Licorice

12. Wormwood

13. Blessed Thistle

14. Balm

XI. Plants used as Preserves and Pickles l.\ Love- Apple 2. Egg- Plant 3. ' Capsicum 4. Samphire, three Species of different Orders

and Genera - . - ib.

XII. Edible Wild Plants, neglected, or not in

Cultivation ... 681

1. Greens and Pot-herbs from Wild Plants - ib

2. Roots of Wild Plants edible

3. Leguminous Wild Plants edible

4. Salads from Wild Plants

5. Substitutes for Chinese Teas from Wild

Plants - ...

6. Wild Plants applied to various Domestic-

Purposes ...

7. Poisonous Native Plants to be avoided in

searching for edible Wild Plants . 684

XIII. Foreign hardy herbaceous Culinary Ve- getables, little used as such in Britain . 684

- 678

- ib.

. ib.

- 679

- ib.

- 680

682 683 ib.

- ib.

ib.

XIV. Edible Fungi

1. Cultivated Mushroom

2. Morel

3. Truffle, or Subterraneous

XV. Edible Fuci

Puff-ball

- 685

- ib.

- 686

- ib.

Chap. IX.

Horticultural Catalogue. — Hardy Fruit-trees, Shrubs, and Plants

I. Kernel-Fruits -

1. Apple

2. Pear .

3. Quince - - . .

4. Medlar ...

5. True-Service - . .

II. Stone- Fruits - . .

1. Peach . .

2. Nectarine - . .

3. Apricot - . .

4. Almond - _ . .

5. Plum ... .

6. Cherry -

III. Berries -

1. Black, or Garden Mulberry

2. Barberry -

3. Elder ...

4. Gooseberry ....

5. Black Currant ...

6. Red Currant ...

7. Raspberry - . . .

8. Cranberry - . . .

9. Strawberry

IV. Nuts . . ...

1. Walnut . .

2. Chestnut .

3. Filbert

V. Native, or neglected Fruits, deserving Cul

tivation

687 688

ib. 703 710

ib. 711

ib.

ib. 718 719 721 722 725 728

ib. 730 731

ib. 735 736 737 738 739 742

ib. 743 744

- 745

Chap. X.

Horticultural Catalogue. — Exotic Fruits . 746

I. Exotic Fruits in general Cultivation - 747

1. Pine-apple . _ ##

2. Grape- Vine . . . 748

f ' Sg, ■ * " - 75y

4. Melon .... 753

5. Cucumber - . . 764

II. Exotic Fruits, well known, but neglected

as such . . . 765

1. Orange Tribe - - . - ib.

2. Pomegranate . . . 777

3. Olive --.. ib.

4. Indian Fig, or Prickly Pear . . 778

III. Exotic Fruits little known, some of which

merit Cultivation for their Excellence or Rarity ... 779

IV. Exotic Esculents, not hitherto cultivated

as such - . . 785

Chap. XI.

Horticultural Productions which may be ex- pected from a first-rate Kitchen-garden ma- naged in the best Style - . 787

I. January - #t

CONTENTS.

		Tage
II. February	.	- 787
III. March	.	- ib.
IV. April	_	- 788
V. May	.	- ib.
VI. June	...	. ib.
VII July	" A -	- ib.
VIII. August	"	- ib.
IX. September	-	- ib.
X. October	.	- ib.
XI. November	. .	- 789
XII. December	BOOK II. FLORICULTURE.	- ib.

Chap. I. Of the Formation of the Flower-garden \ - 789

Chap. II. Of Planting the Flower-garden - - 797

Chap. III. Of Forming the Shrubbery - - 802

Chap. IV. ;

Of Planting the Shrubbery - - - 804

Chap. V. Of the Hot-houses used in Ornamental Horti- culture ... 811

Chap. VI. Of the General Culture and Management of the Flower-garden and Shrubbery - - 820

Chap. VII.

General Culture and Management of the Orna- mental or Botanic Hot-houses - - 824

Chap. VIII.

Floricultural Catalogue. — Herbaceous Plants 828

I. Florists', or Select Flowers - - ib.

1. Hyacinth - - - 828

2. Tulip - - - 831

3. Ranunculus - - 834

4. Anemone ... 836

5. Crocus - - - 838

6. Narcissus - - - 839

7. Iris - - -840

8. Fritillary - - - 841

9. Lily ... - 842 • 10. Amaryllidese - - ib.

11. lxiae and Gladioli - - 843

12. Tuberose - - - ib.

13. Pjeohy - - - 844

14. Dahlia - . - ib.

15. Auricula - - - 846

16. Primula, or Primrose Family - 853

17. Carnation - - - 855

18. Pink - - -880

19. Double Rocket . - 861

20. Cardinal Flower - . 862

21. Pyramidal Bellflower - - 863

22. Chrysanthemum - ib.

23. Hydrangea - - - 864

24. Balsam - - -865

25. Mignonette - - - 866

II. Border-Flowers ... n,.

1. Species and Varieties of Perennial fi-

brous, ramose, tuberous, and creepingj rooted Herbaceous Border Flowers, ar- ranged as to their Time of Flowering, Height, and Color - - 867

2. Species and Varieties of bulbous-rooted

Border- Flowers - - 874

3. Species and Varieties of Biennial Border-

Flowers - - - 877

4. Species and Varieties of Hardy Annual j

Border-Flowers. - - 878

5. Species and Varieties of Half-hardy

Annual Border-Flowers - - 881

III. Flowers for particular Purposes - ib.

1. Flowers which reach from five to seven

feet in height, for covering naked Walls, or other upright Deformities, and for shutting out distant Objects which it is desirable to exclude - - 882

2. Flowers for concealing Defects on hori-

zontal Surfaces : as naked sub- barren Spots, unsightly Banks, &c. - - ib.

3. Flowers which will grow under the Shade

and Drip of Trees

4. Flowers for ornamenting Pieces of Water,

or planting Aquariums

5. Flowers for ornamenting Rocks, or Ag-

gregations of Stones, Flints, Scoriae formed in imitation of Rocky Surfaces, &c. -

6. Evergreen-leaved Flowers, or such as are

adapted for preserving an Appearance of Vegetation on Beds and Borders during the Winter Months

7. Flowers for Edgings to Beds or Borders -

8. Highly odoriferous Flowers

9. Other selections of Flowers

10. Botanical and other Assemblages of

Plants. — Dial- Plants, Parasites, Ferns and Mosses, Alpines, and a Selection for a small Garden

Chap. IX.

Page 882 ib.

884

Chap. X.

Ornamental Shrubs ...

I. Select Shrubs

1. Rose ...

2. Select American and other Peat-Earth

Shrubs, viz. of Magnoliaceae, Mag. \. nolia; of Rhodoraceee, Rhodendron, Azalea, Kalmia ; of the genera Cistus, Arbutus, Vaccinium, Andromeda, Erica, Daphne, and various others

II. General Catalogue of Shrubs

1. Deciduous Shrubs, arranged as to their

Time of Flowering, Height, and Color of the Flower - -

2. Evergreen Shrubs

3. Climbing and Twining Shrubs

III. Selections of Shrubs for particular Pur-

poses ...

1. Shrubs for concealing vertical and hori-

zontal Deformities

2. Shrubs of rapid and bulky Growth

3. Shrubs which thrive under the Shade and

Drip of Trees -

4. Shrubs for planting by the Sides of Pieces

of Water, or in Marshy Grounds, and among Rocks

5. Shrubs for forming Edgings and Hedges

in Gardens ...

6. Shrubs whose Flowers or Leaves have vo-

latile Odors, and diffuse them in the surrounding Air

7. Shrubs ornamental by their Fruit as well

as Flowers ...

8. Selections of Shrubs for botanical or

economical Purposes, parasitic Trees, and Shrubs for a small Shrubbery

;chap. xi.

Frame Exotics

I. Frame Woody Plants

II. Frame Succulents

III. Frame Herbaceous Plants

IV. Frame Bulbs

V. Frame Biennials ...

VI. Frame Annuals - -

Chap. XII. Green-house Plants ...

I. Select Green-house Plants

1. Geranium - - - - \

2. Exotic Heaths .-

3. Camellia

4. Various Genera which may be considered

as select Green-house Plants, showy, fragrant, and of easy culture

II. Woody Green-house Plants

III. Climbing Green-house Plants

IV. Succulent Green-house Plants

V. Bulbous Green-house Plants

VI. Herbaceous and stemless Green-house

Plants - - -

VII. Of Selections of Green-house Plants for

particular Purposes

885 ib. ib.

ib.

887

Catalogue of Hardy Trees, with showy Flowers

I. Deciduous Trees with showy Flowers - 888

II. Evergreen Trees - - - 889

Chap. XIII.

Drv-stovc Plants

ih. ib. ib.

893 895

ib.

898 900

901

ib. ib.

ib.

902 ib.

ib. ib.

ib.

903

ib. 904

ib.

905 ib. ' ib. 806 909

911 ib. 917 91 S ib.

919

ib

CONTENTS.

I. Woody Dry-stove Plants

II. Climbing Dry-stove Plants

III. Succulent Dry-stove Plants

IV. Bulbous Dry-stove Plants ...

V. Herbaceous Dry-stove Plants

Chap. XIV.

Hot-house, or Bark-stove Plants

I. Woody Bark-stove Plants

II. Climbing Bark-stove Plants

III. Bulbous-rooted Bark-stove Plants

IV. Perennial Herbaceous Bark-stove;Plants -

V. Annual Herbaceous Bark-stove Plants

VI. Aquatic Stove Plants

VII. Scitaminous, or Reedy Stove Plants

VIII. Selections of Bark-stove Plants for par- ticular Purposes

IX. Selection of Dry and Bark-stove Plants,

for such as have only one Hot-house to contain them

Chap. XV.

Monthly Catalogue of the leading Productions of Ornamental Horticulture

BOOK III.

ARBORICULTURE, OR PLANTING.

Chap. I.

Of the Uses of Trees and Plantations, and the Profits attending their Culture

I. Of the Uses of Trees individually, as Objects

of Consumption -

II. Of the Uses of Trees collectively as Plant-

ations - ...

III. Of the Profits of Planting

Page

- 920 - ib.

■ ib.

■ ib. . 921

ib. ib.

928 Jb.

ib. 929

ib. 930

ib.

- 933

ib,

935

ib.

937 940

Chap. II. Of the different kinds of Trees and Plantations ib.

I. Of the Classification of Trees relatively to

their use and effect in Landscape - ib.

II. Of the Classification of Plantations, or

Assemblages of Trees - - 942

Chap. III. Of the Formation of Plantations, in which

Utility is the principal Object - - 943

Chap. IV. On forming Plantations, in which Ornament or Effect is the leading Consideration - 950

Chap. V. Of the Culture and Management of Plantations 958

Chap. VI.

Of appropriating the Products of Trees, pre- paring them for Use or Sale, and estimating their Value - - - 967

Chap. VII. Of the Formation of a Nursery-Garden for the Propagation and Rearing of Trees and Shrubs - - - 973

Chap. VIII. Of the Culture and Management of a Nursery for Trees and Shrubs - - 974

Page

I. Coniferous Trees and Shrubs, their Seeds,

Sowing, and Rearing - - 975

II. Trees and Shrubs bearing Nuts, Acorns,

Masts, Keys, &c. their Sowing and Rearing - ... 977

III. Trees and Shrubs with berried Stones,

their Sowing and Rearing - - 978

IV. Trees and Shrubs bearing Berries and

Capsules with small Seeds - - 979

V. Trees and Shrubs bearing leguminous

Seeds, their Sowing and Rearing - ib.

VI. Trees and Shrubs bearing small soft Seeds,

their Sowing and Rearing - - 980

VII. Culture common to all the Classes of

Tree-seeds ... ib.

VIII. Of propagating Trees by Layers, Cut- tings, Suckers, Grafting, &c. - - 981

Chap. IX.

Arboricultural Catalogue - - 982

I. Resinous or Coniferous Trees - - 983

II. Hard-wooded non-resinous Trees - 987

III. Soft-wooded Trees - - 992

BOOK IV.

LANDSCAPE-GARDENING.

Chap. I. Of the Principles of Landscape-Gardening - 995

I. Of the Beauties of Landscape-Gardening,

as an inventive and mixed Art, and of the Principles of their Production - - 996

II. Of the Beauties of Landscape-Gardening,

considered as an imitative Art, and of the Principles of their Production - 998

Chap. II. Of the Materials of Landscape-Gardening I. Of operating on Ground

1002 ib. 1005 1009 1013 1014

II. Of operating with Wood

III. Of operating with Water

IV. Rocks

V. Buildings -

VI. Of the Accidental Accompaniments to

the Materials of Landscape - - 1016

Chap. III. Of the Union of the Materials of Landscape- Gardening, in forming the constituent Parts of a Country- Residence - -1018

Chap. IV. Of the Union of the constituent Scenes in forming Gardens or Residences of particular Characters : and of laying out Public Gar- dens - - - 10£1

I. On laying out Private Gardens, or Resi-

dences - - 1022

II. Public Gardens - - 1028

1. Public Gardens for Recreation - ib.

2. Public Gardens of Instruction - 1030

3. Commercial Gardens - - 1033

Chap, V. Of the Practitioners of Landscape-Gardening 1036

I. Of the Study of the given Situations and

Circumstances, and the Formation of a Plan of Improvement - - 1037

II. Of carrying a Plan into Execution - 1038

FART IV.

STATISTICS OF BRITISH GARDENING.

BOOK I.

OF THE PRESENT STATE OF GARDENING IN J THE BRITISH ISLES.

Chap. I. Pa§e

Of the different Conditions of Men engaged in

the Practice or Pursuit of Gardening - 1040

I. Of Operators, or Serving Gardeners - „ to.

Page

II. Tradesmen-Gardeners - 1041

III. Garden Counselors, Artists, or Professors 104S

IV. Patrons of Gardening - ib.

Chap. II.

Of the different Kinds of Gardens in Britain, relatively to the different Classes of Society, and the different Species of Gardeners - 1043

I. Private British Gardens - • - ib.

Xll

CONTENTS.

II. Commercial Gardens

III. Public Gardens

Page

• 1052

• 1057

Chap. III.

Topographical Survey of the British Isles

in respect to Gardening - - 1060

I. Gardens and Country- Residences of Eng-

land 1061

II. Wales ... . 1084

III. Scotland ... . 1086 IV Ireland '1093

Chap. IV.

I. Of the Literature of Gardening - -1097 1. British Works on Gardening - - 1099

II. Of the Literature of Gardening in Foreign

Countries ... 1115

1. Works on Gardening published in France,

exclusive of Translations - - ib.

2. Works on Gardening published in Ger-

many, including Denmark and Swit- zerland, exclusive of Translations - 1122

3. Works on Gardening published in Italy,

exclusive of Translations - - 1128

4. Works on Gardening originated and

published in Holland, exclusive of Translations - - - 1129

5. Works on Gardening, published in Sweden,

Norway, and Iceland, exclusive of Translations ... ib.

6. Works on Gardening, published in Po-

land and Russia - - 1131

7. Works on Gardening, published in Por-

tugal and Spain - ib.

8. Works on Gardening, published in North

America - ib.

Page Chap. V.

Of the Professional Police, and Public Laws relative to Gardeners and Gardening - 1131

BOOK II.

OF THE FUTURE PROGRESS OF GARDENING IN BRITAIN.

Chap. I. Page

Of the Improvement of the Taste of the Patrons of Gardening ... 1133

Chap. II.

Of the Education of Gardeners - "- 1135

I. On the degree of Knowledge which may be

attained by Practical Men, and on the ge- neral Powers of the human Mind, as to Attainments ... ib.

II. Of the Professional Education of Gar-

deners - - 1136

III. Of the Intellectual Education which a

Gardener may give himself, independ- ently of acquiring his Profession - 1138

IV. Moral, Religious, and Physical Education

of Gardeners ... 1141

V. Of Economical Education, or the general

Conduct and Economy of a Gardener's Life - - - 1143

KALENDARIAL INDEX GENERAL INDEX

1147 1165

ENCYCLOPAEDIA

OF

GARDENING.

THE earth, Herder observes, Is a star among other stars, and man, an improving animal acclimated in every zone of its diversified surface. The great mass of this star is composed of inorganic matters called minerals, from the decomposing surface of which proceed fixed organic bodies called vegetables, and moving organic bodies called animals. Minerals are said to grow, or undergo change only ; vegetables to grow and live; and animals to grow, live, and move. Life and growth imply nourishment; and primitively, vegetables seem to have lived on minerals ; and animals, with some exceptions, on vegetables. Man, supereminent, lives on both ; and, in consequence of his faculty of improving himself and other beings, has contrived means of increasing the number, and ameliorating the quality of those he prefers. This constitutes the eliief business of private life in the country, and includes the occupations of housewifery, or domestic economy, agriculture, and gardening.

Gardening, the branch to which we here confine ourselves, as compared with agri- culture, is the cultivation of a limited spot, by manual labor, for culinary and orna- mental products ; but relative to the present improved state of the art, may be defined the formation and culture, by manual labor, of a scene more or less extended, for various purposes of utility, ornament and recreation.

Thus gardening, like most other arts, has had its origin in the supply of a primitive want ; and, as wants became desires, and desires increased, and became more luxurious and refined, its objects and its province became extended ; till from an enclosure of a few square yards, containing, as Lord Walpole has said, u a gooseberry-bush and a cab- bage," such as may be seen before the door of a hut on the borders of a common, it has

expanded to a park of several miles in circuit, its boundaries lost in forest scenery,

a palace bosomed in wood near its centre ; the intermediate space varied by artificial lakes or rivers, plantations, pleasure-grounds, flower-gardens, hot-houses, orchards, and potageries : — producing for the table of the owner and his guests, the fruits, flowers, and culinary vegetables, of every climate of the world ! — displaying the finest verdant landscapes to invite him to exercise and recreation, by gliding over velvet turf, or po- lished gravel walks, sheltered, shady, or open in near scenes; or with horses and chariots along rides and drives " of various view" in distant ones.

From such a variety of products and objects, and so extended a scene of operations, have arisen the different branches of gardening as an art ; and from the general use of gardens, and of their products by all ranks, have originated their various kinds, and the different forms which this art has assumed as a trade or business of life. Gardening is practised for private use and enjoyment, in cottage, villa, and mansion gardens ; — for public recreation, in umbrageous and verdant promenades, parks, and other scenes, in and near to large towns; — for public instruction, in botanic and experimental gardens ; — for public example, in national or royal gardens ; — and for the purpose of commerce, in market, orchard, seed, physic, florists', and nursery gardens.

To aid in what relates to designing and laying out gardens, artists or professors have arisen ; and the performance of the operative part is the only source of living of a nu- merous class of serving gardeners , who acquire their art by the regular routine of ap- prenticeship, and probationary labor for some years as journeymen.

B "

The products of the kitchen-garden form important articles of human food for all ranks of society ; and furnish the chief luxuries of the tables of the rich, and a main support of the families of the poor. One of the first objects of a colonist on arriving at a new settlement is to plant a garden, as at once a proof of possession, and a pledge of immediate enjoyment ; and indeed the history of the civilisation of mankind bears evidence, that there are few benefits which a cultivated people can bestow on savage tribes, greater than that of distributing among them the seeds of good fruits and oler- aceous herbs, and teaching them their culture.

The pleasure attending the pursuit of gardening is conducive to health and repose of mind ; and a taste for the enjoyment of gardens is so natural to man, as almost to be universal. Our first most endearing and most sacred associations, Mrs. Holland ob- serves, are connected with gardens ; our most simple and most refined perceptions of beauty are combined with them ; and the very condition of our being compels us to the cares, and rewards us with the pleasures attached to them. Gardening has been the inclination of kings and the choice of philosophers, Sir William Temple has observed ; and the Prince de Ligne, after sixty years' experience, affirms, that the love of gardens is the only passion which augments with age : " Je voudrois," he says, " ^chauffer tout l'univers de mon g6ut pour les jardins. II me semble qu'il est impossible, qu'un me- diant puisse l'avoir. II n'est point de vertus que je ne suppose a celui qui aime a parler et a faire des jardins. Peres de famille, inspirez la jardinomanie a vos enfans." {Memoires et Lettres, torn, i.)

That which makes the cares of gardening more necessary, or at least more excusable, the former author adds, is, that all men eat fruit that can get it ; so that the choice is only, whether one will eat good or ill ; and for all things produced in a garden, whether of salads or fruits, a poor man will eat better that has one of his own, than a rich man that has none.

To add to the value and extend the variety of garden productions, new vegetables have been introduced from every quarter of the globe ; to diffuse instruction on the sub- ject, numerous books have been written, societies have been established, and premiums held out for rewarding individual merit ; and where professorships of rural economy exist, gardening may be said to form a part of public instruction.

A varied and voluminous mass of knowledge has thus accumulated on the subject of o-ardening, which must be more or less necessary for every one who would practise the art with success, or understand when it is well practised for him by others. To combine as far as practicable the whole of this knowledge, and arrange it in a syste- matic form, adapted both for study and reference, is the object of the present work. The sources from which we have selected, are the modern British authors of decided reputation and merit ; sometimes recurring to ancient or continental authors, and occa- sionally, though rarely, to our own observation and experience ; — observation in all the departments of gardening, chiefly in Britain, but partly also on the Continent ; and experience during nearly twenty years' practice as an architect of gardens.

With this purpose in view, Gardening is here considered, in

Part Book

I. As to its origin, progress, and C 1. Among the different nations of the world.

present state, £ 2. Under different political and geographical circumstances.

C 1. The study of the vegetable kingdom. TI . f , , J 2. The study of the natural agents of vegetable growth and culture.

1 1 . As a science lounaec on - < 3 The gtudy of the mechanical agents employed in gardening.

C 4. The study of the operations of'gardening.

rl. The practice of horticulture.

,TT . . • j^j^ j 2. The practice of floriculture.

III. As an art, comprehending j 3 The £ractjce of arboriculture.

C 4. The practice of landscape gardening.

,„ „. ^ .. „ . • Tj^t„:„ f 1. As to its present state.

IV. Statistically in Britain - [ 2 Ag tQ itg &ture progress>

A Kalendarial Index to those parts of the work which treat of culture and manage- ment, points out the operations as they are to be performed in the order of time and of the season : and

A General Index explains the technical terms of gardening ; gives an outline of the culture of every genus of plants, native or introduced in British gardens ; and presents an analysis of the whole work in alphabetical order.

PART I.

GARDENING CONSIDERED IN RESPECT TO ITS ORIGIN, PRO- GRESS, AND PRESENT STATE AMONG DIFFERENT NATIONS, GOVERNMENTS, AND CLIMATES.

1. The history of gardening may be considered chronologically, or in connection with that of the different nations who have successively flourished in different parts of the world ; politically, as influenced by the different forms of government which have pre- vailed ; and geographically, as affected by the different climates and natural situations of the globe. The first kind of history is useful as showing what has been done ; and what is the relative situation of different countries as to gardens and gardening ; and the political and geographical history of this art affords interesting matter of instruction as to its past and future progress.

BOOK I.

HISTORY OF GARDENING AMONG ANCIENT AND MODERN NATIONS.

2. The chronological history of gardening may be divided into three periods ; the ages of antiquity, commencing with the earliest accounts and terminating with the foundation of the Roman empire ; the ancient ages, including the rise and fall of the Roman empire ; and the modern tunes, continued from thence to the present day.

Chap. I.

Of the Origin and Progress of Gardening in the earliest ages of Antiquity, or from the 10th century before the vulgar cera to the foundation of the Roman Empire.

3. All ancient history begins with fable and tradition ; no authentic relation can reach farther back than the organisation of the people who followed the last grand revolution sustained by our globe. Every thing which pretends to go farther must be fabulous, and it is only the primeval arts of war and husbandry which can by any means go so far. The traditions collected by Herodotus, Diodorus, Hesiod, and some other authors, when freed from the mythological and mysterious terms in which they are enveloped, seem to carry us back to that general deluge, or derangement of the surface strata of our globe, of which all countries, as well as most traditions, bear evidence. As to gardening, these traditions, like all rude histories, touch chiefly on particulars calculated to excite wonder or surprise in ignorant or rude minds, and accordingly the earliest notices of gardens are confined to fabulous creations of fancy, or the alleged productions of princes and warriors. To the first may be referred the gardens of Paradise and the Hesperides ; and to the others the gardens of the Jews, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks.

Sect. I. Of the fabulous Gardens of Antiquity.

4. The fabulous gardens of antiquity are connected with the religions of those times. These religions have been arranged by philosophers {De Paw's Dissert.) in three divisions ; Barbarism, Scytkism, and Helenism. To the latter belong the Hebrew, Greek, and Mahomedan species. Each of these has its system of creation, its heaven and its hell, and, what chiefly concerns us, each system has its garden. The garden of the Jewish mythology is for the use of man ; that of the Grecian polytheism is appropriated to the Gods ; and the Mahomedan paradise is the reward held out to the good in a future state.

5. Gan-cden, or the Jewish Paradise, is supposed to have been situated in Persia, though the inhabitants of Ceylon say it was placed in their country, and according to the Rev. Dr. Buchanan (Researches in India, Sec), still point out Adam's bridge and Abel's tomb. Its description may be considered as exhibiting the ideas of a poet, whose object was to bring together every sort of excellence of which he deemed a garden susceptible ; and it is remarkable that in so remote an age (B. C. 1600) his picture should display so much of general nature. Of great extent, watered by a river, and abounding in timber and woodiness, paradise seems to have borne some resemblance to a park and pleasure- grounds in the modern taste; to which indeed its amplified picture by Milton has been thought bv "Walpole and others to have given rise. When Adam began to transgress in

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4 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Tart I.

the garden he wars turned out to till the ground, and paradise was afterwards guarded By a miraculous sword, which turned every way to meet trespassers. (See Genesis ii. 3. ; Bishop Huel on the Situation of Paradise, 1691, 12mo. ; Burnet's Theory of the Earth, book ii. chap. 2. ; Sicklers Geschiclde der obst cultur, &c. 1801. 1 Band.)

6. The gardens of Hesperides were situated in Africa, near Mount Atlas, or, accord- ing to some, near Cyrenaica. They are described by Scylax, a geographer of the sixth century, B. C, as lying in a place eighteen fathoms deep, steep on all sides, and two stadia in diameter, covered with trees of various kinds, planted very close together, and interwoven with one another. Among the fruit-trees were golden apples (supposed to be oranges), pomegranates, mulberries, vines, olives, almonds, and walnuts ; and the orna- mental trees included the arbutus, myrtle, bay, ivy, and wild olive. This garden con- tained the golden apples which Juno gave to Jupiter on the day of their nuptials. They were occupied by three celebrated nymphs, daughters of Hesperus, and guarded by a dreadful dragon which never slept. Hercules carried off the apples by stratagem, but they were afterwards returned by Minerva. What finally became of the nymphs of the warden, or of the apples, we are as ignorant as we are of the fate of paradise, or the tree " in the midst thereof," which contained the forbidden fruit, and of which, as Lord Walpole observes, " not a slip or a sucker has been left behind."

7. The promised garden of Mahomet, or the heaven of his religion, is said to abound in umbrageous groves, fountains, and Houri, or black-eyed girls : and the enjoyments, which in such scenes on earth last but for a moment, are to be there prolonged for a thousand years.

8. Dr. Sicklers opinion of these gardens is, that Eden and Hesperides allude to, or are derived from, one original tradition. Paradise, he considers as a sort of figurative description of the finest district of Persia ; and he traces various resemblances between the apples of Eve and of Juno; the dragon which never slept, and the flaming sword which turned every way. Some very learned and curious speculations on this subject are to be found in the introduction to his Geschichte der obst cultur. With respect to the paradise of Mahomet, it is but of modern date, and may probably have been suggested by the gardens described in "Solomon's Song," and other poems ; though some allege that the rural coffee-houses which abound in the suburbs of Constantinople gave the first idea to the prophet.

Sect. II. Jewish Gardens. B. C. 1500.

9. King Solomon's garden is the principal one on record ; though many others belong- ing both to Jewish princes and subjects are mentioned in the Bible. Solomon was at once a botanist, a man of learning, of pleasure, and a king. The area of his garden was quadrangular, and surrounded by a high wall ; it contained a variety of plants, curious as objects of natural history, as the hyssop, (a moss, as Hasselquist thinks,) " which springeth out of the wall ;" odoriferous and showy flowers, as the rose, and the lily of the valley, the calamus, camphire, spikenard, saffron, and cinnamon ; timber-trees, as the cedar, the pine, and the fir ; and the richest fruits, as the fig, grape, apple, palm, and pomegranate. (Curtii Sprengel Historia Rei herbaria:, lib. i. c. 1 .) It contained water in wells, and in living streams, and, agreeably to eastern practices, aviaries and a seraglio. The seraglio Parkhurst supposes was at once a temple of worship and of pleasure, and he quotes the words of Ezekiel (xiii. 20.) in their literal translation : "lam against, saith the Lord, your luxurious cushions, wherewith ye ensnare souls in the flower-gardens." Ashue or Venus was the deity who was worshipped by a company of naked females : Dr. Brown (Antiq. of the Jews,) describes the mode of worship ; and concludes by lamenting that depravity in man, which converts the beauties of nature into instruments of sin. The situation of Solomon's garden was in all probability near to the palace, as were those of his successors, Ahasuerus and Ahab. (Esther vii. 8.)

10. We know little of the horticulture of the Jews; but like that of the eastern nations in general, it was probably then as it still is in Canaan, directed to the growing of cooling fruits, to allay thirst and moderate heat ; aromatic herbs to give a tone to the stomach, and wine to refresh and invigorate the spirits. Hence, while their agricultural produce was wheat, barley, rye, millet, vetches, lentils, and. beans, their gardens produced cucumbers, melons, gourds, onions, garlic, anise, cummin, coriander, mustard, and various spices. Their vineyards were sometimes extensive : Solomon had one at Baalhamon which he let out at 1000 pieces of silver per annum. (Cant. viii. 11, 12.)

Sect. III. Phceacian Gardens. B. C. 900.

1 1 . The garden of Alcinous, the Phaeacian king, was situated in an island of that name, by some considered Corfu, in the Ionian sea, and by others, and with more reason, an Asiatic island. It is minutely described by Homer in the Odyssey, and may be compared to the garden of an ordinary farm-house in point of extent and form ; but in respect to the variety of fruits, vegetables, and flowers cultivated, was far inferior. It

Book I. GARDENS OF ANTIQUITY. 5

embraced the front of the palace ; contained something less than four acres, surrounded by a hedge, (the first, as Harte remarks, which we read of in history,) and interspersed with three or four sorts of fruit-trees, some beds of culinary vegetables, and some borders of flowers ; it contained two fountains or wells, the one for the use of the garden, and the other for the palace.

12. The gardens of Laertes, described in the same work, appear to have been similar to the above in character and extent, use being more studied than beauty ; and vicinity to the house or palace, for the immediate access of the queen or housewife, being a greater desideratum than extent, variety of products, or prolonged recreation.

13. The reality of the existence of these gardens is very doubtful. They are by many ranked with those of Adonis ( Virg. Georg. ii. 87.), Paradise, Hesperides ( Virg. Mn. iv. 484.), and Venus {Ali Beys Travels, vol. i.), and considered with them as mere creations of the fancy. Sir \V. Temple is of opinion that the principal gardens of Ionia may have had some resemblance to those described by Homer, as lying in the barren island of Phasacia ; but that the particular instance stated as belonging to Alcinous is wholly poetical. {Temple's Works. Essay on Gardens.) Gouget rejects altogether the idea of Phseacia being an European isle, and considers the Pha;acians as a Greek colony in one of the islands of Asia. (Origine de Loix, &c. torn. iii. 174.)

Sect. IV. Babylonian or Assyrian Gardens. B. C. 2000.

14. The gardens of Cyrus at Babylon (Plin. xix. 4.), or of the kings of Assyria, or, according to Bryant (Anal, of Ancient Mythology, vol. iii. p. 100.), of the chiefs of the ancient people called Semarim, were distinguished by their romantic situations, great extent, and diversity of uses and products, and were reckoned in their days among the wonders of the world.

15. The form of these gardens was square, and, according to Diodorus and Strabo, each side was four hundred feet in length, so that the area of the base was nearly four acres. They were made to rise with terraces constructed in a curious manner above one another, in the form of steps, somewhat like those of the Isola Bella in the Lago Maggiore in Italy, and supported by stone pillars to the height of more than three hundred feet, gradually diminishing upwards till the area of the superior surface, which was flat, was reduced considerably below that of the base. This building was constructed by vast stone beams placed on p'illars of stone, (arches not being then invented,) which were again covered with reeds, cemented with bitumen, and next were laid a double row of bricks united by cement. Over these were laid plates of lead, which effectually prevented the moisture from penetrating downwards. Above all was laid a coat of earth, of depth sufficient for plants to grow in it, and the trees here planted were of various kinds, and were ranged in rows on the side of the ascent, as well as on the top, so that at a distance it appeared as an immense pyramid covered with wood. The situation of this extraordinary effort was adjoining or upon the river Euphrates, from which water was supplied by machinery for the fountains and other sources for cooling the air and watering the garden. (Dr. Falconer s Historical View of the Gardens of Antiquity, &c. p. 17.)

1 6. The prospect from these elevated gardens was grand and delightful. From the upper area was obtained a view not only of the whole city, and the windings of the Euphrates, which washed the base of the superstructure three hundred feet below ; but of the cul- tivated environs of the city and surrounding desert, extending as far as the eye could reach. The different terraces and groves contained fountains, parterres, seats and banquetting-rooms, and combined the minute beauties of flowers and foliage, with masses of shade and extensive prospects ; — the retirement of the grove in the midst of civic mirth and din ; — and all the splendor and luxury of eastern magnificence in art, with the simple pleasures of verdant and beautiful nature. " This surprising and la- borious experiment," G. Mason observes, " was a strain of complaisance in King Nebuchadnezzar to his Median queen, who could never be reconciled to the flat and naked appearance of the province of Babylon, but frequently regretted each rising hill and scattered forest she had formerly delighted in, with all the charms they had presented to her youthful imagination. The King, who thought nothing impossible for Ids power to execute, nothing to be unattempted for the gratification of his beloved consort, de- termined to raise woods and terraces even within the precincts of the city, equal to those by which her native country was diversified." (Essay on Design, &c. p. 9.)

17. An elevated situation seems in these countries to have been an essential re- quisite to a royal garden ; probably because the air in such regions is more cool and salubrious, — the security from hostile attack of any sort more certain, — and the prospect always sublime. " When Semiramis came to Chanon, a city of Media," ob- serves Diodorus Siculus- (lib. ii. cap. IS.), "she discovered on an elevated plain, a rock of stupendous height, and of considerable extent. Here she formed another para- dise, exceeding large, enclosing a rock in the midst of it, on which she erected sumptuous buildings for pleasure, commanding a view both of the plantations and the encampment.

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6 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

Id. The existence f these gardens, however, is very problematical. Bryant {Ancient Mythology) gives his reasons lor disbelieving the very existence of Queen Semiramis, who. Dr. Sickler says, was not a queen, but a (beysclddferinn) concubine. Bryant acknowledges, however, that paradises of great extent, and placed in elevated situations, were with great probability ascribed to the ancient people called Semarim. Quintus Curtius (lib. xv. cap. 5.) calls these gardens " fabulous wonders of the Greeks:" and Herodotus, who describes Babylon, is silent as to their existence. Many consider their description as representing a hill cut into terraces, and planted : and some modern travellers have fan- cied that they could discover traces of such a work. The value of such conjectures is left to be estimated by the antiquarian ; we consider the description of this Babylonian garden as worth preserving for its grandeur and suitableness to the country and climate.

Sect. V. Persian Gardens. B. C. 500.

19. The Persian Kiyigs were very fond of gardens, which, Xenophon says, were cultivated for the sake of beauty as well as fruit. " Wherever the Persian king, Cyrus, resides, or whatever place he visits in his dominions, he takes care that the Paradises, shall be filled with every thing, both beautiful and useful, the soil can produce." (Xen. Memorab. lib. v. p. 829.) The younger Cyrus was found by Ly- sander, as Plutarch informs us, in his garden or paradise at Sardis, and on its being praised by the Spartan general, he avowed that he had conceived, disposed and adjusted the whole himself, and planted a considerable number of trees with liis own hands. Cyrus had another paradise at Celenae, which was very extensive, and abounded in wild beasts ; and we are informed that the same prince " there mustered the Grecian forces to the number of thirteen thousand." (De Cyri Exped. lib. i.)

20. A paradise in the Island of Panchcea, near the coast of Arabia, is described by Diodorus Siculus, as having been in a flourishing state in the time of Alexander's immediate successors, or about B. C. 300. It belonged to a temple of Jupiter ;Try- philius, and had a copious fountain, which burst at once into a river, was cased with stone near half a mile, and was afterwards used for irrigation. It had the usual accom- paniments of groves, fruit-trees, thickets, and flowers.

21. The grove of Orontes in Syria, is mentioned by Strabo (lib. xvi.) as being in his time nine miles in circumference. It is described by Gibbon as " composed of laurels and cypress, which formed in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest water issuing from every hill preserved the verdure of the earth, and the temperature of the air ; the senses were gratified with harmonious sounds, and aromatic odours ; and the peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love." (Decline and Fall of the Roniaii Empire, chap. xiii.J

22. In Persian gardens of a more limited description, according to Pliny and other Ro- man authors, the trees were arranged in straight lines and regular figures ; and the margins of the walks covered with tufts of roses, violets, and other odoriferous flowering plants. Among the trees, the terebinthinate sorts, the oriental plane, and, what may appear to us remarkable, the narrow-leaved elm, (now called English, but originally, as Dr. Walker and others consider, from the Holy Land), held conspicuous places. Buildings for repose, banqueting, voluptuous love; fountains for cooling the air, aviaries for choice birds, and towers for the sake of distant prospect, were introduced in the best examples.

Sect. VI. Grecian Gardens. B. C. 300.

23. The Greeks copied the gardening of the Persians, as they did their manners and architecture, as far as the difference of climate and state of society would admit. Xenophon, a Greek philosopher of the fourth century before Christ, admired the gardens of the Persian prince Cyrus, at Sardis ; and Diogenes Laertius informs us that Epicurus delighted in the pleasures of the garden, and made choice of one as the spot where he taught his philosophy. Plato also lays the scene of his dialogue of beauty on the umbrageous banks of the river Ilissus. In the first eclogue of Theocritus, the scene is laid under the shade of a pine-tree, and the beauty of Helen is compared to that of a cypress in a garden. It would appear from this and other .circumstances, that the love of terebinthinate trees, so general in Persia, and the other eastern countries, was also prevalent in Greece ; and the same flowers (made choice of for their brilliant colors and odoriferous perfumes) appear to have been common to both countries. Among these may be enumerated the narcissus, violet, ivy, and rose. (Historical View, &c. p. 30. etseq.) There are many curious observations on this subject in Stackhouse's edition of Theophrastus. Lord Bacon, in his Essay on Gardens, and G. Mason, already quoted, concur in considering gardening as rather a neglected art in Greece, notwithstanding the progress of the sister art of architecture, which gave rise to the remark of the former, " that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection. "

Book I. GARDENS OF ANTIQUITY. 7

24. The vale of Tempe, however, as described in the third book of ./Elian's vari- ous history, and the public gardens of Athens according to Plutarch, prove that their phi- losophers and great men were alive to the beauties of verdant scenery. The acadenuis or public garden of Athens, Plutarch informs us, was originally a rough uncultivated spot, till planted by the general Cimon, who conveyed streams of water to it, and laid it out in shady groves, with gymnasia, or places of exercise, and philosophic walks. Among the trees were the olive, plane, and elm ; and the two last sorts had attained to such extraordinary size, that at the siege of Athens by Sylla, in the war with Mithridates, they were selected to be cut down, to supply warlike engines. In the account of these gardens by Pausanias we learn, that they were highly elegant, and decorated with temples, altars, tombs, statues, monuments, and towers ; that among the tombs were those of Pirithous, Theseus, (Edipus, and Adrastes; and at the entrance was the first altar dedicated to love.

25. The passages of the Greek writers which relate to gardens have been amply illustrated by the learned German antiquarian Ba^ttinger (Racemazionen zur Gurtenkiuist dcr Alten) ; on which it may be remarked, that the qualities chiefly enlarged on are, shade, coolness, freshness, breezes, fragrance, and repose — effects of gardening which are felt and relished at an earlier period of human civilisation than picturesque beauty, or other poetical and comparatively artificial associations with external scenery ; for though gardening as a merely useful art may claim priority to every other, yet as an art of imagination, it is one of the last which has been brought to perfection. In fact, its existence as such an art, depends on the previous existence of pastoral poetry and mental cultivation ; for what is nature to an uncultivated mind ?

Sect. VII. Gardening in the ages of Antiquity, as to Fruits, Culinary Productions, and

Flowers.

26*. The first vegetable production which attracted man's attention as an article of food, is supposed to have been the fruit of some tree ; and the idea of removing such a tree to a spot, and enclosing and cultivating it near his habitation, is thought to be abundantly natural to man, and to have first given rise to gardens. All the writers of antiquity agree in putting the fig at the head of the fruit-trees that were first cultivated. The vine is the next in order, the fruit of which serves not only for food, like that of the fig, but also for drink. Noah the Jewish Bacchus, and Osiris the Bacchus of the Egyptians and Greeks, are alike placed in the very first age of the postdiluvian world. The almond and pome- granate were early cultivated in Canaan (Gen. xliii. 5. 11. and Ahttnb. xx. 5.), and it appears by the complaints of the Israelites in the wilderness, that the fig, grape, pomegra- nate, and melon, were known in Egypt from time immemorial.

27. The first herbage made use of by man, would be the most succulent leaves or stalks which the surface around him afforded ; of these every country has some plants which are succulent even in a wild state, as the chenopodea;. Sea cale, and asparagus, were known to the Greeks from the earliest ages, and still abound in Greece, the former on the sandy plains, and the latter on the sea shores. One of the laws of Solon prohibits women from eating crambe in child-bed. Of the green seeds of herbage plants, the bean and other legu- minoseae were evidently the first in use, and it is singular that Pythagoras should have forbidden the use of beans to his pupils because they were so much of the nature of flesh ; or, in the language of modern chemistry, because they contained so much vegeto-animal matter.

28. The first roots, or rootlike jmrts of jilants made use of, must have been some of the surface bulbs, as the onion, (Numb. xi. 5.) and the edible crocus (C aureus, Fl. Graze) of Syria. Underground bulbs and tubers, as the orchis, potatoe, and earthnut, would be next discovered : and ramose roots, as those of the lucerne in Persia, and arracacha (I/igus- l ten m sp. ?) in Mexico, would be eagerly gnawed wherever they could be got at. Bulbs of culture, as the turnip, would be of much later discovery, and must at first have been found only in temperate climates.

29. The use of plants for preternatural, religious, funereal, medical, and 'scientific pur- poses, like every other use, is of the remotest antiquity. Rachel demanded from her sister the mandrakes (Mandragora officinalis, \V.) (Jig. 1. from the Flora Grceca), whose roots are thought to resemble the human form, which Reuben had brought from the fields ; impressed, as she no doubt was, witli the idea of the efficacy of that plant against sterility. Bundles of flowers covered the tables of the Greeks, and were worn during repasts, be- cause the plants, of which they consisted, were supposed to possess the virtue of preserving the wearer from the fumes of wine, of refreshing the thinking faculty, preserving the purity of ideas, and the gaiety of the spirits. Altars were strewed with flowers both by Jews and Greeks ; they were placed on high places, and under trees, as old clothes are still sacrificed on the trunks of the Platanus in Georgia and Persia. God appeared to Moses in a bush. Jacob was embalmed, in all probability, with aromatic herbs.

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8

HISTORY OF GARDENING.

Part (.

Aristotle's materia medica was chiefly plants.

Solomon wrote on botany as a philosopher, and

appears to have cultivated a general collection,

independently of his plants of ornament.

30. Flowers, as decorations, must have been

very soon vised on account of their brilliant colors

and smell. The Greeks, Theophrastus informs

us, (Hist. Plant, lib. vi. c. 5.) cultivated roses,

gilly-flowers, violets, narcissi, and the iris ; and

we read in Aristophanes (Acharn. v. 212.), that

a market for flowers was held at Athens, where

the baskets were very quickly disposed of. From

the writings of other authors, we learn that a con- tinual use was made of flowers throughout all Greece. Not only were they then, as now, the ornament of beauty, and of the altars of the gods,

but youth crowned themselves with them in the fetes : priests in religious ceremonies ; and guests in convivial meetings. Garlands of flowers were suspended from the gates in times of rejoicing ; and, what is still more remarkable, and more remote from our manners, the philosophers them- selves wore crowns of flowers, and the warriors ornamented their foreheads with them in days of triumph. These customs existed in every part of the East. There were at Athens, as after- wards at Rome, florists, whose business it was to weave crowns (coronarice) and wreaths of flowers. Some of these crowns and garlands were of one species of flower ; others of different species ; or of branches of peculiar plants, relating to some symbolical or mythological idea. Hence the term, coronaria; , was applied to such -plants as were consecrated to those uses, and of which some were cultivated, and others gathered in the fields ; but the name was applied to all such as were distinguished by the beauty or fragrance of their flowers. (Curt. Spreng. Hist. R. Herb. lib. i. & ii. ; Paschalis de Coronis, lib. x. ; Sabina by Bcetdnner, in N. Mon. Mag. Jan. and Feb. 1819. ; Theophrastus by Stackhouse, &c.)

31. ^The first implement ttsed in cultivating the soil, all antiquarians agree, must have been of the pick kind. A medal of the greatest antiquity, dug up in the island of Syracuse, contained the impression of such an implement (jig. 2. a). Some of the oldest Egyptian

hieroglyphics have similar representations '(b) ; and Eckeberg has figured what may be considered as the primitive spade of China (c). In the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury, when Peru was discovered by the Spaniards, the gardeners of that country had no other spade than a pointed stick, of which the more industrious made use of two at a time. (d) The Chinese implement bears the highest marks of civilisation, since it has a hilt or cross handle, and a tread for the foot ; and consequently supposes the use of shoes or sandals by the operator, and an erect position of his body. The Roman spade (ligo), those of Italy (zappa), and of France (beche), are either flattened or two-clawed picks, which are worked entirely by the arms, and keep the operator constantly bent almost to the ground; or long-handled wooden spatulae also worked solely by the arms, but with the body in a more erect position. Both kinds equally suppose a bare-footed operator, like the Grecian and Peruvian gardeners, and those of France and Italy at the present day.

Book I. GARDENS OF THE ROMANS. 9

32. It is said that the browsing of a goat gave the first idea ofjrruning the vine, as chance, which had set fire to a rose-tree, according to Acosta (Histoire Nat. des hides), gave the first idea of pruning the rose. Theophrastus informs us that fire was applied to the rose-trees in Greece to enrich them, and that without that precaution they would bear no flowers.

33. The origin of the art of grafting has been very unsatisfactorily accounted for by Pliny and Lucretius. The crossing, rubbing, and subsequent growing together of two branches of a crowded tree or thicket, are more likely to have originated the idea ; but when this was first noticed, and how grafting came to be used for the amelioration of fruits, will probably ever remain a secret. Macrobius, a Roman author of the fifth century, according to the taste of his time, says, Saturn taught the art to the inhabitants of Latium. It does not appear to have been known to the Persians, or the Greeks, in the time of Homer, or Hesiod ; nor, according to Chardin, is it known to the Persians at this day. Grafting was not known in China till very lately ; it was shown to a few gardeners by the Missionaries, as it was to the natives of Peru and South America, by the Spaniards. Some, however, infer from a passage in Manlius, that it may have been mentioned in some of Hesiod's writings, which are lost.

34. The culture of fruits and culinary plants must have been preceded by a considerable degree of civilisation. Moses gave some useful directions to his people on the culture of the vine and olive. For the first three years, they are not to be allowed to ripen any fruit ; the produce of the fourth year is for the Lord or his priests ; and it is not till the fifth year that it may be eaten by the planter. This must have contributed materially to their strength and establishment in the soil. The fruit-trees in the gardens of Alcinous were planted in quincunx ; there were hedges for shelter and security, and the pot-herbs and flowers were planted in beds ; the whole so contrived as to be irrigated. Melons in Persia were manured with pigeon's dung, as they are to this day in that country. After being sown, the melon tribe produce a bulk of food sooner than any other plant ; hence the value of this plant in seasons of scarcity, and the high price of doves' dung during the famine in Samaria (2 Kings, vi. 25.), when a cab, not quite three pints of corn mea- sure, cost five pieces of silver.

Chap. IL

Chronological History of Gardening, from the time of (lie Roman Xi?igs, in the sixth century B. C., to the Decline and Fall of the Empire in the fifth century of our cera.

35. Gardening among the Bo?nans we shall consider, 1. As an art of design or taste : 2. In respect to the culture of flowers and plants of ornament : 3. As to its products for the kitchen and the dessert : 4. As to the propagation of timber-trees and hedges : . and 5. As a science, and as to the authors it has produced. In general it will be found that the Romans copied their gardening from the Greeks, as the latter did from the Persians, and that gardening like every other art extended with civilisation from east to west.

Sect. I. Roman Gardening as an Art of Design and Taste.

36. The first mention of a garden in the Roman History is that of Tarquinius Super- bus, B. C. 534, by Livy and Dionysius Halicarnassus. From what they state, it can only be gathered that it was adjoining to the royal palace, and abounded with flowers, chiefly roses and poppies. The next in the order of time are those of Lucullus, situated near Baia?, in the bay of Naples. They were of a magnificence and expense rivalling that of the eastern monarchs ; and procured to this general, the epithet of the Roman Xerxes. They consisted of vast edifices projecting into the sea ; of immense artificial elevations ; of plains formed where mountains formerly stood ; and of vast pieces of water, which it was the fashion of that time to dignify with the pompous titles of Nilus and Euripus. Lucullus had made several expeditions to the eastern part of Asia, and it is probable, he had there contracted a taste for this sort of magnificence. Varro ridicules these works for their amazing sumptuosity ; and Cicero makes his friend Atticus hold cheap those magnificent waters, in comparison with the natural stream of the river Fibrenus, where a small island accidentally divided it. [De Legibus, lib. ii. ) Lucullus, however, had the merit of introducing the cherry, the peach, and the apricot from the East, a benefit which still remains to mankind. (Plutarch in vita Lucidli ; Sallust ; and Varro de Re Rustica.)

37. Of the gardens of the Augustan age of Virgil and Horace, generally thought to be that in which taste and elegance were eminently conspicuous, we know but little. In a garden described by the former poet in his Gcorgics (lib. iv. 121.), he places only

10 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

chicory, cucumbers, ivy, acanthus, myrtle, narcissus, and roses. — Doth Vfa-gil and Pro- pertius mention the culture of the pine-tree as beloved by Pan, the tutelar deity of gardens ; and that the shade of the plane, from the thickness of its foliage, was particu- larly agreeable, and well adapted for convivial meetings. The myrtle and the bay they describe as in high esteem for their odor ; and to such a degree of nicety had they arrived in this particular, that the composition or mixture of odoriferous trees became a point of study ; and those trees were planted adjoining each other, whose odors assimi- lated together. Open groves in hot countries are particularly desirable for their shade, and they seem to have been the only sort of plantation of forest-trees then in use. From Cicero and the elder Pliny, we learn that the quincunx manner of planting them was very generally adopted ; and from Martial, that the manner of clipping trees was first introduced by Cneus Matius, a friend of Augustus. Statues and fountains, according to Propertius, came into vogue about the same time, some of them casting out water in the way of jets-cVeau, to occasion surprise, as was afterwards much practised in Italy in the dawn of gardening in the sixteenth century.

38. The gardens and pleasure-grounds of Pliny the consul are described at length in his Letters, and delineations of their ichnography have been published by Felibien in 1699, and by Castell in 1728. Some things, which could only be supplied by the imagination, are to be found in both these authors ; but on the whole their plans, especially those of Castell, may be considered as conveying a tolerably correct idea of a first-rate Roman villa, as in the Laurentinum, and of an extensive country-residence, as in the Thuscum.

39. The Villa Laurentinum was a winter residence on the Tiber, between Rome and the sea ; the situation is near Paterno, seventeen miles from Rome, and is now called San Lorenzo. The garden was small, and is but slightly described. It was surrounded by hedges of box, and where that had failed, by rosemary. There were platforms and terraces ; and figs, vines, and mulberries were the fruit-trees. Pliny seems to have valued this retreat chiefly from its situation relatively to Rome and the surrounding country, which no walls, fortresses, or belt of wood, hid from his view. On this region he expatiates with delight, pointing out all " the beauty of his woods, his rich meadows covered with cattle, the bay of Ostia, the scattered villas upon its shore, and the blue distance of the mountains ; his porticoes and seats for different views, and his favorite little cabinet in which they were all united. So great was Pliny's attention in this particular, that he not only contrived to see some part of this luxurious landscape from every room in his house, but even while he was bathing, and when he reposed him- self! for he tells us of a couch which had one view at the head, another at the feet, and another at the back." [Preface to Malthas' s Introduction to Girardins Essay, &c. p. 20.) We may add with Eustace and other modern travellers, that the same general appear- ance of woods and meadows exists there to this day.

40. Pliny s Thuscum, or Tuscuhin Villa (fg. 3.), now Frascati, was situated in a natural amphitheatre of the Apennines, whose lofty summits were then, as now, crowned with forests of oak, and their fertile sides richly covered with corn-fields, vineyards, copses, and villas. Pliny's description of this retreat, though well known, is of import- ance, as showing what was esteemed good taste in the gardens and grounds of a highly accomplished Roman nobleman and philosopher, towards the end of the first century, under the reign of Trajan, when Rome was still in all her glory, and the mistress of the world in arts and in arms.

41. A general tour of the Tuscidan Gardens is given by Malthus and Dr. Fal- coner. Their extent, Malthus thinks, may have been from three to four acres, and their situation round the house.

Beginning there, the xystus or terrace (5), says the author of the Historical Essay, is described as in the front of the portico, and near to the house ; from this descended a lawn covered with acanthus or moss (13), and adorned with figures of animals cut out in box-trees, answering alternately to one another. This lawn was again surrounded by a walk enclosed with tonsil evergreens sheared into a variety of forms. Beyond this was a place of exercise (2), of a circular form, ornamented in the middle with box-trees sheared as before into numberless different figures, together with a plantation of shrubs kept low by clip- ping. The whole was fenced in by a wall covered by box rising in different ranges to the top.

Proceeding from another quarter of the house, there was a small space of ground, shaded by four plane-trees (7), with a fountain in the centre, which, overflowing a marble basin, watered the trees and the verdure beneath them. Opposite to another part of the building was a plantation of trees, in form of a hippodrome (6), formed of box and plane trees alternately planted, and connected together by ivy. Be- hind these were placed bay-trees, and the ends of the hippodrome, which were semicircular, were formed of cypress (8). The internal walks were bordered with rose-trees, and were in a winding direction, which however terminated in a straight path, which again branched into a variety of others, separated from one another by box-hedges ; and these, to the great satisfaction of the owner, were sheared into a variety of shapes and letters (10), some expressing the name of the master, others that of the artificer, while here and there small obelisks were placed, intermixed with fruit-trees.

Further on was another walk, ornamented with trees sheared as above described, at the upper end of which was an alcove of white marble shaded by vines, and supported by marble pillars, from the seat of which recess issued several streams of water, intended to appear as if pressed out by the weight of those which reposed upon it, which water was again received in a basin, that was so contrived as to seem al- ways full without overflowing. Corresponding to this was a fountain, or jet (Veau, that threw out water to a considerable height, and which ran off as fast as it was thrown out. An elegant marble summer-

Book I.

GARDENS OF THE ROMANS.

11

house opening into a green enclosure, and furnished with a fountain similar to that last described, fronted the above. Throughout the walks were scattered marble seats, near to each of which was a little fountain • and throughout the whole small rills of water were artificially conducted among the walks that served to entertain the ear with their murmurs as well as to water the garden. {Historical View &c ' n 5A • Plinvs Epistles, b. v. letter 6. j Felibien, Plans et Descr. ,• CasteU's Villas of the Ancients.) '

42. The details of the Tusculan Villa are thus given by Castell. (Fig. 3.)

( 1 ) Villa, or house.

( 2 ) Gestatio, or place of exercise for chariots.

j 3 ) Ambulatio, or walk surrounding the terraces.

( 4 ) The slope, with the forms of beasts cut in box.

(5) The xystus, or terrace, before the porticus, and on the sides of the house.

( (> ) The hippodrome, or plain so called, on the north side of the house.

( 7 ) Plane trees on the straight bounds of the hippodrome.

( 8 ) Cypress trees on the semicircular bounds of the hippo- drome.

( 9 ) The stibadium and other buildings In the garden.

f 101 Box cut into names and other forms.

(11) The pratulum, or little meadow in the garden.

(12) The imitation of the natural face of some country In the

garden.

(13) The walk, covered with acanthus or moss.

!14) The meadows liefore the gestatio. 15) The tops of the hills, covered with aged trees. 16) The underwood on the declivities ofthe lulls. 17) Vineyards below the underwood. IS) Corn-fields. (19) The river Tiber.

20) The temple of Ceres, built by Must!us.

21) The farmery.

22) Vivarium, or park. (28) Kitchen-garden. (24) Orchard.

(251 Apiary.

(2G) Cochlearium, or snailery.

27) Glirarlum, or place for dormice.

2K) Osier-ground.

29) Aqueduct.

(Villa* o/ the Ancient; p. 54., and Plate Tkutcam.

43. That the style of Flimfs villas gave the tone to the European taste in gardening up to the end of the 17th century is sufficiently obvious. It is almost superfluous to remark,

12 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

observes the author of the Historical View, the striking resemblance which Pliny's gardens bear to the French or Dutch taste. The terraces adjoining to the house ; the lawn declining from thence ; the little flower-garden, with the fountain in the centre ; the walks bordered with box, and the trees sheared into whimsical artificial forms ; toge- ther with the fountains, alcoves, and summer-houses, form a resemblance too striking to bear dispute. " In an age," observes Lord Walpole, " when architecture displayed all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste ; when arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the temple of Peace, Trajan's forum, Domitian's bath, and Adrian's villa, the ruins and vestiges of which still excite our astonishment and curiosity ; a Roman consul, a polished emperor's friend, and a man of elegant literature and taste, delighted in what the mob now scarcely admire in a college-garden. All the ingredients of Pliny's garden corre- spond exactly with those laid out by London and Wise on Dutch principles ; so that nothing is wanting but a parterre to make a garden in the reign of Trajan serve for the description of one in the reign of King William." — The open country round a villa was managed, as the Roman agricultural writers inform us, in the common field system lately prevalent in Britain ; there were few or no hedges, or other fences, or rows of trees, but what was not under forest was in waste, with patches of fallow or corn. Thus it appears that the country residence of an ancient Roman, not only as to his garden, as Lord Wal- pole has observed, but even as to the views and prospects from his house, as Eustace and Malthus hint, bore a very near resemblance to the chateau of a French or German nobleman in the 18th century, and to not a few in France and Italy at the present day.

The same taste as that displayed by Pliny appears to have prevailed till the fall of the

Roman empire ; and by existing in a faint degree in the gardens of religious houses during the dark ages, as well as in Pliny's writings, has thus been handed down to modern times.

44. The progress of gardening among the Romans was much less than that of architecture. Professor Hirschfield remarks (Theorie des Jardins, torn. i. p. 25.), that as the descriptions of the ancient Roman authors make us better acquainted with their country-houses than with their gardens, and as the former appear more readily submitted to certain rules than the latter, we are apt to bestow on the gardens the reputation which really belongs to the country-houses, and give the one a value which does not belong to the other. The different manner in which the ancients speak of country-houses and of gardens, may lead us to judge which of the two objects had attained the highest degree of perfection. The descriptions of the first are not only more numerous but more detailed. Gardens are only mentioned in a general manner ; and the writer rests satisfied with bestowing appro- bation on their fertility and charms. Every country-house had its gardens in the days of Pliny ; and it is not too much, taking this circumstance in connection with the re- marks of Columella, to hazard a conjecture that even the Romans themselves considered their o-ardens less perfect than their houses. Doubtless the Roman authors, so attentive to elevate the glory of their age in every thing concerning the fine arts, would have en- larged more on this subject, if they had been able to produce any thing of importance. To decide as to the perfection which a nation has attained in one of the arts, by their perfection in another, is too hazardous a judgment ; the error has been already committed in regard to the music of the ancients, and must not be repeated in judging of their gardens. The Romans appear in general to have turned their attention to every thing which bore the impression of grandeur and magnificence; hence their passion for building baths, circuses, colonnades, statues, reservoirs, and other objects which strike the eye. Besides, this taste was more easily satisfied, and more promptly, than a taste for plant- ations, which required time and patience. In all probability the greater number contented themselves with the useful products of the soil, and the natural beauty of the views, bestowing the utmost attention to the selection of an elevated site commanding distant

scenery. Cicero {Be Legg. iii. 15.) informs us that it was in their country-villas that

the Romans chiefly delighted in displaying their magnificence ; and in this respect, the coincidence in habits between ourselves and that great people is a proud circumstance.

45. The Roman taste in gardens has been condemned as unnatural ; but such criticism we consider as proceeding from much too limited a view of the subject. Because the Roman gardens were considered as scenes of art, and treated as such, it does not follow that the possessors were without a just feeling for natural scenery. Where all around is nature, artificial scenes even of the most formal description will please, and may be approved of by the justest taste, from their novelty, contrast, and other associations. If all England were a scattered forest like ancient Italy, and cultivation were to take place only in the open glades or plains, where would be the beauty of our parks and picturesque grounds ? The relative or temporary beauties of art should therefore not be entirely rejected in our admiration of the more permanent and absolute beauties of nature. That the ancient Romans admired natural scenery with as great enthusiasm as the moderns, is evident from the writings of their eminent poets and philosophers ; scarcely one of whom has not in some part of his works left us the most beautiful descriptions

Book I. GARDENS OF THE ROMANS. 13

of natural scenery, and the most enthusiastic strains of admiration of all that is grand, pleasing, or romantic in landscape ; and some of them, as Cicero and Juvenal, have deprecated the efforts of art in attempting to improve nature. " Whoever," says G. Mason, " would properly estimate the attachment to rural picturesque among the heathen nations of old, should not confine their researches to the domains of men, hut extend them to the temples and altars, the caves and fountains dedicated to their deities. These, with their concomitant groves, Mrere generally favorite objects of visual pleasure, as well as of veneration." (Essay on Design, p. 24.)

Sect. II. Roman Gardening considered as to the Culture of Flowers and Plants of

Ornament.

46. Floivers were rare in Roman gardens under the kings, and during the first ages of die republic. But as luxury began to be introduced, and finally prevailed to a great de- gree, the passion for flowers became so great tfiat it was found necessary to suppress it by sumptuary laws. The use of crowns of flowers was forbid to such as had not received the right to use them, either by the eminence of their situation, or by the particular per- mission of the magistrates. Some acts of rigor towards offenders did not hinder their laws from being first eluded, and at last forgotten, till that which was originally a distinc- tion became at last a general ornament. Men the most elevated in dignity did not hesitate to set up that elegance of dress and of ornament which is repugnant to the idea of a war- like people ; and Cicero, in his third harangue against Verres, reproaches this proconsul with having made the tour of Sicily in a litter, seated on roses, having a crown of flowers on his head, and a garland at his back.

47. The Floralia, or Jlower -feasts, were observed on the last four days of April ; they were attended with great indecency, but they show that the common people also carried a taste for flowers to excess. (Pliny, xiii. 29. ; Tertullian. Opera.)

48. The luxury of flowers under Augustus was carried to the extreme of folly. Helio- gabalus caused his beds, his apartments, and the porticoes of his palace to be strewed with flowers. Among these, roses were the sort chiefly employed, the taste for that flower being supposed to be introduced from Egypt, where, as Athenasus informs us, Cleopatra paid a talent for the roses expended at one supper ; the floor of the apartment in which the entertainment was given, being strewed with them to the depth of a cubit. This, how- ever, is nothing to what Suetonius relates of Nero, who spent upwards of four millions of sesterces, or above thirty thousand pounds, at one supper, on these flowers. From Horace it appears that roses were cultivated in beds ; and from Martial, who mentions roses out of season as one of the greatest luxuries of his time, it would appear that it was then the caprice, as at present, to procure them prematurely, or by retardation. Columella enume- rates the rose, the lily, the hyacinth, and the gilly-flower, as flowers which may embellish the kitchen-garden ; and he mentions, in particular, a place set apart for the production of late rose3. Pliny says, the method by which roses were produced prematurely was, by watering them with warm water when the bud began to appear. From Seneca and Martial it appears probable they were also forwarded by means of specularia, like certain culinary proauctions to be afterwards mentioned.

49- Scientific assemblages of plants, or botanic gardens, appear to have been unknown to the Romans, who had formed no regular system of nomenclature for the vegetable king- dom. Pliny informs us that Anthony Castor, one of the first physicians at Rome, had assembled a number of medical plants in his garden, but they were, in all probability, for the purposes of his profession. Between 200 and 300 plants are mentioned in Pliny's History, as used in agriculture, gardens, medicine, for garlands, or other purposes, and these appear to be all that were known or had names in general use. (Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. xii. — xxvi. inclusive.)

Sect. III. Roman Gardening in respect to its Products for the Kitchen and the Dessert.

50. The term Hortus in the laws of the Decemviri, which are supposed to be as old as the establishment of the Romans as a people, is used to signify both a garden and a country-house, but afterwards the kitchen-garden was distinguished by the appellation Hortus Pinguis. Pliny informs us, that a husbandman called a kitchen-garden a second dessert, or a flitch of bacon, which was always ready to be cut ; or a sal lad, easy to be cooked and light of digestion, and judged there must be a bad housewife (the garden being her charge) in that house where the garden was in bad order.

51. The principal fruits introduced to Italy by the Romans, according to Hirschfield (Theorie des Jardins, vol. i. p. 27.) and Sickler (Geschichte, 1 Rand.), are the fig from Syria, the citron from Media, the peach from Persia, the pomegranate from Africa, the apricot from Epirus, apples, pears, and plums from Armenia, and cherries from Pontus. The rarity and beauty of these trees, he observes (Theorie des Jardins, vol. i. p. 27.), joined to the delicious taste of their fruits, must have enchanted the Romans, especially on their first introduction, and rendered ravishing to the sight,

14 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

o-ardens which became insensibly embellished with the many productions which were poured into them from Greece, Asia, and Africa.

52. The fruits cultivated by the Romans, in the summit of their powSr, are described by Pliny (lib. xv.), and with the exception of the orange and pine-apple, gooseberry, cur- rant, and raspberry, include almost all those now in culture in Europe.

Of kernel fruits they had, apples, twenty-two sorts at least : They had round berried and long-berried sorts, one so long that

sweet apples (melimalu) for eating, and others for cooker)'. They it was called dactulides, the grapes being like the fingers on the

had one sort without kernels. Of pears, thev had thirty-six hand. Martial speaks favorably of the hard-skinned grape for

kinds, both summer and winter fruit, melting and hard ; some eating. Of Jigs, they had many sorts, black and white, large

■were called libralia : we have our pound pear. Of quinces, and small ; one as large as a pear, another no larger than an

they had three sorts, one was called chrysomela, from its yellow olive. Of mulberries, they had two kinds of the black sort, a

flesh ; they boiled them with honev, as we make marmalade. larger and smaller. Ptiny speaks also of a mulberry growing

Of services, they had the apple-shaped, the pear-shaped, and a on a briar; but whether this means the raspberry, or the

small kind, probably the same as we gather wild. Of medlars, common brambleberry, does not appear. Strawberries they had,

two sorts, larger and smaller. hut do not appear to have prized : the climate is too warm to

Of stoile fruits, they had peaches, four sorts, including nee- produce this fruit in perfection, unless on the hills,

tarines, apricots, almonds. Of plutns, they had a multiplicity Of nuts they had hazel-nuts and rilberds, winch they roasted;

of sorts black, white, and variegated; one sort was called beech, mast, pistacia, &c. Of malnuts they had soft-shelled

asinia from its cheapness ; another damascena, which had and hard-shelled, as we have. In the golden age, w hen men

much' stone and little flesh : we may conclude it was what we lived upon acorns, the gods lived upon walnuts ; hence the

now call prunes. Of cherries, they had eight kinds, a red one, name Juglans, Jovis Glans. Of chestnuts, they had six sorts,

a black one, a kind so tender as scarcely to bear any carriage, some more easily separated from the skin than others, and one

a hard-fleshed one (durachui), like our Bigarreau, a small one with a red skin ; they roasted them as we do.

-with bitterish flavor (laurea), like our little wild black, also a Of leguminous fruits, the carob bean, ceratonia sUiqua.

dwarf one not exceeding three feet high. Of the olive, several Of resinous or terebinthinate fruits they used the kernels of

sorts# four sorts of pine, including, as is still the case in Tuscany, the

Of 'berries they had grapes. They had a multiplicity of these, seeds of the Scotch pine,

both thick-skinned (duracina) and thin-skinned : one vine Otcucurbitaccmis fruits, they had the gourd, cucumber, and

growing at Rome produced 12 amphorae of juice, 84 gallons. melon, in great variety.

53. The grape and the olive were cultivated as agricultural products with the greatest at- tention, for which ample instructions are to be found in all the Roman writers on Geoponics. Some plantations mentioned by Pliny are supposed still to exist, as of olives at Terni and of vines at Fiesoli. Both these bear marks of the greatest age.

54. The culinary vegetables cultivated by the Romans were chiefly the following :

Of the brassica tribe, several varieties. Cabbages, Columella Of the alliaceous tribe, the onion, and garlick of several sorts.

says were esteemed both bv slaves and kings. Of sallads, endive, lettuce, and chicory, mustard and others.

Of leguminous plants, the pea, bean, and kidney-bean. Of pot and street herbs, parsley, orache, alisanders, dittancter,

Of esculent roots, the turnip, carrot, parsnip, beet, skirret, elecampane, fennel, and chervil, and a variety of others, and radish Mushrooms, and fuci were used; and bees, snails, dormice,

Of spina'ceous plants, they appear to have had at least sorrel. &c. were cultivated in or near to their kitchen gardens, in ap-

Of as paraginous plants, asparagus. propriate places.

55. The luxury of forcing vegetable productions it would appear had even been at- tempted by the Romans. Specularia, or plates of the lapis specidaris, we are informed by Seneca and Pliny, could be split into thin plates, in length not exceeding five feet (a remarkable circumstance, since few pieces larger than a fifth of these dimensions are now any where to be met with); and we learn from Columella (lib. xii. cap. 3.), Martial (lib. viii. 14. & 68.), and Pliny (lib. xix. 23.), that by means of these specularia, Tiberius, who was fond of cucumbers, had them in his garden throughout the year. They were o-rown in boxes or baskets of dung and earth, placed under these plates, and removed to the open air in fine days, and replaced at night. Sir Joseph Banks (Hort. Tr. i. 148.) conjectures, from the epigrams of Martial referred to, that both grapes and peaches were forced ; and Daines Barrington supposes that the Romans may not only have had hot- houses, but hot-walls to forward early productions. Flues, Sir Joseph Banks observes (Hort. Tr. i. 147), the Romans were well acquainted with ; they did not use open fires in their apartments, as we do, but in the colder countries at least, they always had flues under the floors of their apartments. Lysons found the flues, and the fire-place from whence they received heat, in the Roman villa he has described in Gloucestershire. Similar flues and fire-places were also found in the extensive villa lately discovered on the Blenheim estate in Oxfordshire. In Italy the Romans used flues chiefly for baths or sudatories, and in some of these which we have seen in the disinterred Greek city of Pompeii, the walls round the apartment are flued, or hollow, for the circulation of hot air and smoke.

56. The luxury of ice in cooling liquors was discovered by the Romans at the time when they began to force fruits. Daines Barrington notices this as a remarkable circum- stance, and adds, as a singular coincidence, the coeval invention of these arts in England.

Sect. IV. Roman Gardening considered in respect to the Propagation and Planting of

Timber-trees and Hedges.

57. The Romans propagated trees by the methods now in common use in our nurseries. Fruit-trees were generally grafted and inoculated ; vines, figs, and olives raised by cuttings, layers, or suckers ; and forest-trees generally propagated by seeds and suckers.

58. Though forest-trees were reared with great care round houses in the city (Hor. Ep* i. 10. 22.), yet it does not appear clear that they were planted in masses or strips expressly for useful purposes. They were planted in rows in vineyards on which to train the vine; and the sorts generally preferred were the poplar and the elm. Natural forests and copses, then, as now, supplied timber and fuel. Trees which do not stole {arbores ccedute), were distinguished from such as being cut over spring up again {succisa repullulant) : of the former class was the larch, which was most in use as timber. Pliny mentions a beam 120 feet long and 2 feet thick.

Book I. GARDENS OF THE ROMANS. 15

59. Willows were cultivated for binding the vines to the trees that supported them ; for hedges ; and for making baskets ( Virg. G. ii. 4. 36.) : moist ground was preferred for growing them, Udum salictum.

60. Hedges were of various sorts, but we are not informed what were the plants grown in those used for defence. They surrounded chiefly vineyards and gardens ; for agriculture was then, as now, carried on in the common or open field manner.

Sect. V. Roman Gardening as a Science, and as to the Authors it produced.

61. The gardening of the Romans tvas entirely empirical, and carried on with all the superstitious observations dictated by a religion founded on polytheism. Almost every operation had its god, who was to be invoked or propitiated on all occasions. " I will write for your instruction," says Varro to Fundasius, " three books on husbandry, first invoking the twelve dii consentes." After enumerating the gods which preside over household matters, and the common field operations, he adds, " adoring Venus as the patroness of the garden, and ofFering my entreaties to Lympha, because culture is drought and misery without water. " The elements of agriculture, he says, are the same as those of the world — water, earth, air, and the sun. Agriculture is a necessary and great art, and it is a science which teaches what is to be planted and done in every ground, and what lands yield the greatest profit. It should aim at utility and pleasure, by producing things profitable and agreeable, &c.

62. Lunar days were observed, and also lucky and unlucky days, as described by Hesiod. Some things, Varro observes, are to be done in the fields while the moon is increasing ; others on the contrary when she is decreasing, as the cutting of corn and underwood. At the change of the moon pull your beans before daylight ; to prevent rats and mice from preying on a vineyard, prune the vines in the night-time : sow vetches before the twenty-fifth day of the moon, &c. rt I observe these things," says Agrasius, (one of fifty authors who Varro says had written on husbandry, but whose writings are now lost,) " not only in shearing my sheep, but in cutting my hair, for I might become bald if I did not do this in the wane of the moon."

63. Religion and magic were also called in to the aid of the cultivator. Columella says that husbandmen who are more religious than ordinary, when they sow turnips, pray that they may grow both for themselves and for their neighbours. If caterpillars attack them, Democritus affirms that a woman going with her hair loose, and bare-footed, three times round each bed will kill them. Women must be rarely admitted where cucumbers or gourds are planted, for commonly green things languish and are checked in their growth by their handling of them.

64. Of vegetable physiology they seem to have been very ignorant. It was a doctrine held by Virgil, Columella, and Pliny, that any scion may be grafted on any stock ; and that the scion partaking of the nature of the stock, had its fruit changed in flavor accord- ingly. Pliny mentions the effect of grafting the vine on the elm, and of drawing a vine shoot through the trunk of a chestnut ; but modern experience proves that no faith is to be given to such doctrines, even though some of these authors affirm to have seen what they describe.

65. Equivocal generation was believed in. Some barren trees and shrubs, as the poplar, willow, osier, and broom, were thought to grow spontaneously ; others by fortuitous seeds, as the chestnut and oak ; some from the roots of other sorts of trees, as the cherry, elm, bay, &c. Notwithstanding the ignorance and inaccuracy which their statements betray, the Romans were aware of all our common, and some of our uncom- mon practices : they propagated plants as we do ; pruned and thinned, watered, forced, and retarded fruits and blossoms, and even made incisions and ringed trees to induce fruitfulness.

66. There is no Roman author exclusively on gardening, but the subject is treated, more or less, by Cato, Varro, Virgil, Pliny, and Columella.

Cato and Varro lived, the former B. C. 150, and the latter B. C. 28 : both wrote treatises on rural affairs, Be Re Rustica ; but, excepting what relates to the vine and the fig, have little on the subject of gardens.

Virgil's (icorgics appeared in the century preceding the commencement of our a?ra. Virgil was born in Mantua about B. C. 70 ; but lived much at Rome and Naples. He appears to have taken most of his ideas from Cato and Varro.

Pliny's Natural History was written in the first century of our aera. Pliny was born at or near Rome, and lived much at court. The twelfth to the twenty-sixth book inclusive are chiefly on husbandry, gardens, trees, and medical plants.

The Rural (Economy of Columella is in twelve books, of which the eleventh, on Gardening, is in verse. He was born at Gadcs, now Cadiz, in Spain, but passed most of his time in Italy.

16

HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

Chap. III.

Clironological History of Gardening, in continental Europe from the Time of the Romans to the present Day, or from A. D. 500 to A. D. 1823.

67. The decline of the Roman Empire commenced with the reign of the emperors. The ages, Hirschfield observes, which followed the fall of the republic, the violence committed by several of the emperors, the invasion of the barbarians, and the ferocity introduced by the troubles of the times, extinguished a taste for a country life, in pro- portion as they destroyed the means of enjoying it. So many injuries falling on the best provinces of the Roman empire, one after another, soon destroyed the country- houses and gardens. Barbarism triumphed over man and the arts, arms again became the rei<nuno' occupation, superstition allied itself to warlike inclinations, and spread over Europe a manner of thinking far removed from the noble simplicity of nature. The mixture of so many different nations in Italy did not a little contribute to corrupt the taste ; the possessions of the nobles remaining without defence, were soon pillaged and razed, and the earth was only cultivated from necessity. Soon afterwards the first countries were considered those where one convent raised itself beside another. Archi- tecture was only employed in chapels and churches, or on warlike forts and castles. From the establishment of the ecclesiastical government of the Popes in the eighth to the end of the twelfth century, the monks were almost the only class in Europe who occu- pied themselves in agriculture ; many of these, carried away by their zeal, fled from the corruption of the age, and striving to overcome their passions, or indulge their gloomy humor, or, as Herder observes, to substitute one passion for another, retired into solitary deserts, unhealthy valleys, forests, and mountains ; there they labored with their own hands, and rendered fertile, lands till then barren from neglect, or in a state of natural rudeness.

68. Thus the arts of culture were preserved by tlie monks during the dark ages. The sovereigns, in procuring pardon of their sins by bestowing on the monks extensive tracts of country and slaves, recompensed their activity as rural improvers. The monks of St. Basil and St. Benedict, Harte informs us, rendered many tracts fertile in Italy, Spain, and the south of France, which had lain neglected ever since the first incursions of the Goths and Saracens. Others were equally active in Britain in ameliorating the soil. Walker (Essays) informs us that even in the remote island of Iona, an extensive estab- lishment of monks was formed in the sixth century, and that the remains of a corn-mill and mill-dam built by them still exist ; and indeed it is not too much to affirm, that without the architectural and rural labors of this class of men, many provinces of Europe which at present nourish thousands of inhabitants would have remained deserts or marshes, the resorts only of wild beasts, and the seminaries of disease ; and architecture and gardening, as arts of design, instead of being very generally diffused, would have been lost to the greater part of Europe.

69. At length the dawn of light appeared with the art of printing, Luther, and Hen. VIII. Commerce began to flourish in Italy and Holland, arts of peace began to prevail, and the European part of what was formerly the Roman empire gradually assumed these political divisions which it for the greater part still retains. We shall take a cursory view of the progress of gardening in each of these states, from the dark ages to the present day.

Sect. I. Of the Revival, Progress, and present State of Gardening in Italy.

70. The blessings of peace and of commerce, the remains of ancient grandeur still existing, and the liberty which some cities had acquired through the generosity and splen- dor of some popes and princes, united with other causes in the revival of the arts in Italy rather than in any other countiy.

Subsect. 1. Italian Gardening, in respect to Design and Taste.

71. The earliest notice of Italian gardening is in the work of Pierre de Crescent, a senator of Bologna. He composed in the beginning of the fourteenth century a work on agriculture, which he dedicated to Charles II. king of Naples and Sicily. In the eighth book of this work the author treats of gardens of pleasure. These he divides into three classes ; those of persons of small fortune : those of persons in easy circum- stances ; and those of princes and kings. He teaches the mode of constructing and ornamenting each ; and of the royal gardens observes, that they ought to have a menagerie and an aviary ; the latter placed among thickets, arbors, and vines. Each of the three classes ought to be decorated with turf, shrubs, and aromatic flowers.

72. Gardening, with the other arts, was revived and patronised by the Medici family in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the most celebrated gardens of these times, as Roscoe informs us, were those of Lorenzo de Medici, and of the wealthy Bernard Ru-

Book I. GARDENING IN ITALY. 17

cellal. They were in the geometric and architectural taste of those of Pliny, and served as models or precedents for other famous gardens which succeeded them till within the last sixty years, when, as Eustace observes, a mixture of the modern or natural-like manner was generally admitted.

73. The taste for distributing statues and urns in gardens is said to have been revived about the beginning of the sixteenth century by Cardinal D'Este, from the accidental circumstance of his having formed a villa on the site of that of the emperor Adrian, near Rome, where finding a number of antiquities, he distributed them over the newly arranged surface. This mode was soon imitated by Francis I. of France, and afterwards by the other countries of Europe. Gardens of plants in pots and vases, began to be introduced about the same time, and were used to decorate apartments, balconies, and roofs of houses as at present.

74. About the end of the sixteenth century, the celebrated Montaigne travelled in Italy, and has left us some accounts of the principal gardens of that age. He chiefly enlarges on their curious hydraulic devices, for which the garden of the Cardinal de Ferrara at Tivoli was remarkable. (Jour, en Ital. torn, ii.)

75. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, L* Adamo, a poem, was written and published at Milan in 1617, by G. B. Andreini, a Florentine. The prints, Warton observes, (Essay on Pope,) that are to represent paradise are full of dipt hedges, square parterres, straight walks, trees uniformly lopt, regular knots and carpets of flowers, groves nodding at groves, marble fountains, and water-works. This may be considered as a poetic assemblage of the component parts of a fine Italian garden in the seventeenth century.

76. After the middle of the seventeenth century, the celebrated Evelyn, the author of Sylva, visited Italy, and has described a number of its principal gardens.

At Genoa he saw the palace of Hieronymo del Negro, " on the terrace or hilly garden, there is a grove of stately trees, among which are sheep, shepherds, and wild beasts, cut very artificially in a grey stone ; fountains, rocks, and fish-ponds. Casting your eyes one way, you would imagine yourself in a wilder- ness and silent country ; sideways, in the heart of a great city."

At and near Florence, he says, there are more than a thousand palaces, and country-houses of note. He particularises those of Boboli at the ducal residence (now the palace Pitti), in the town, which still exist and are kept in tolerable order.

In and near Home, he mentions those of the Borghese family, and of Cardinal Aldobrandini at Frascati, " surpassing, in my opinion, the most delicious places I ever beheld for its situation, elegance, plentiful waters, groves, ascents, and prospects." He admires several hydraulic conceits, some of which still exist, and also that " of a copper ball, supported by a jet of air issuing from the floor, and continually dancing about."

At Tivoli he visited the palace and gardens of Este, which are mentioned with similar encomiums.

Of the palaces and gardens of Lombardy, he observes, " No disgrace in this country to be some gener- ations in finishing their palaces, that, without exhausting themselves by a vast expence at once, they may at last erect a sumptuous pile." " An Italian nobleman," Forsyth remarks, " will live on a crown a day, but spend millions for the benefit of posterity, and the ornament of his country."

At Vilmarini, near Vicenza, he found an orangery, " eleven score paces long, full of fruit and blossoms. In the centre of the garden, a magnificent wire cupola, supported by slender brick piers, and richly covered with ivy. — A most inextricable labyrinth." {Memoirs by Bray, vol. i. 75—207.)

77. In the beginning of the eighteenth century Italy was visited by Volkman, a German traveller, whom Hirschfield considers as deserving credit, and a good judge. He repre- sents the Italian gardens as inferior to those of France in point of superb alleys, lofty dipt hedges, and cabinets of verdure ; but, he adds, that they please the greater part of tra- vellers from the north of Europe, more than the French gardens, from the greater variety of plants which they contain, and their almost perpetual luxuriance and verdure. Among the fine gardens, he includes those of Venerie, Stupigni, and Vigne de la Reine, near Turin, which do not appear to have been visited by Evelyn. The beauties of most of the gardens near Rome, he considers as depending more on their situations, distant views, classic remains and associations, luxuriant vegetation, and fine climate, than on their design, which, he says, exhibits " all the puerilities of the French taste, without its formal grandeur." (Nachrichten von Italien, 1 ster band.)

78. About the middle of the eighteenth century the English style of gardening began to attract attention in Italy, though partly from the general stagnation of mind, and partly from the abundance of natural beauty already existing, it has never made much progress in that country. " Unfortunately," observes Eustace (Tour, i. 426.), a traveller abun- dantly partial to Italy, " the modern Romans, like the continental nations in general, are not partial to country residence. They may enjoy the description or commend the representation of rural scenes and occupations in books and pictures ; but they feel not the beauties of nature, and cannot relish the calm, the solitary charms of a country life," The Italians in general, he elsewhere adds (i. 98.), have very little taste in furnishing a house, or in laying out grounds to advantage. — Notwithstanding these remarks, and the known paucity of specimens of landscape gardening in Italy, an Italian author of eminence, Professor Malacarne of Padua, has lately claimed for Charles Imanuel, first Duke of Savoy, the honor of having invented and first displayed an English garden or park in the neighbourhood of Turin ; and which park he proves by a letter of Tasso, that poet wished to immortalise " as much as he could," in the well-known stanza of his Jerusalem, which Chaucer copied, and which Warton and Eustace suggest as more

C

HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

likely to have given the first idea of an English garden, than Milton's description of Paradise. (New Mon. Mag. for July 1820.; Pindemonte su i Giardini Inglese, Verona,

1817.)

79. Of the present state of gardening in Italy, as an art of design, we shall submit a slight sketch, partly from writers of the present century, and partly from our own inspec- tion in 1819. The grand object of an Italian nobleman is to produce a huge pile of architecture, externally splendid, and to collect a gallery of pictures and statues. The furnishing of this pile for domestic use, or even the internal finishing of great part of it, he cares little about ; and the park or gardens are inferior objects of attention. The Romans, when at the highest point of power, seem to have had exactly the same taste, as may be gathered from their writings, and seen in the existing ruins of the Villa Adriana, near Tivoli, and many others.

80. Near Turin, the palace and gardens of Venerie still exist, but are only remarkable for extent, and for an old orangery nearly six hundred feet in length. The surface of the park is irregular, and the trees distributed in avenues, alleys, and geometrical figures ; the grounds of some of the numerous white villas near the city are romantic, and command extensive prospects ; but very few aspire to the character of fine gardens.

81. At Genoa the best garden is that of Sig. di Negro, situated within the city. It is elevated, irregular, and singularly varied ; rich in views of the town, the sea, and the mountains ; abounds in fruits, botanical riches, shady and open walks, turrets, and caves. There is one large cave in which dinner-parties are frequently given by the pro- prietor ; and once a year, we believe on his birth-day, this grotto is decorated with some hundreds of religious puppets in gilt dresses, accompanied with pictures of saints, sculls, crucifixes, relics, tapers, and lamps. This forms a part of the gardener's business, who preserves these paraphernalia through the rest of the year in a sort of museum. We mention the circumstance as characteristic of the Italian taste for spectacle, so different from that of the English. The gardens of Hipolito Durazo, and of Grimaldi, are more extensive, but less select than those of S. di Negro. Like them they are singularly varied in surface, and rich in marine views. The whole coast from Savonna to Genoa, and from Genoa to Nervi, is naturally very irregular, and abounds in beautiful gardens, abundantly stocked with orange trees, partly in pots, and in the warmest situations trained against walls, or planted as standards. We visited many of these gardens, and the only general fault seemed to be the want of order and keeping ; properties which are essential to the full effect of every style in every country.

82. The gardens of Lombardy are the most luxuriant in vegetation, not only in Italy, but perhaps in Europe. The climate is not so favorable for the perfection of the grape and the orange as that cf Naples, nor for the production of large turnips and succulent cabbages as that of Holland ; but it possesses a medium of temperature and humidity between the two climates which is perhaps favorable to a greater number of vegetable productions, than any one climate on the face of our globe. There are few princely gardens in this kingdom, but many of moderate size well stocked with trees and plants of ornament, and sometimes neatly kept.

The gardens of the Brenta still retain marks of their ancient celebrity.

The extent and beauty of those of the kola Bella {fig A.), have been greatly exaggerated by Eustace, and other travellers. The justest description appears to us to be that of Wilson. " Nothing,' he says, " can be so noble as the conversion of a barren rock, without an inch of earth on its surface, into a paradise of fertility and luxury. This rock, in 1640, produced nothing but mosses and lichens, when Vitaliano Boromeo conceived the idea of turning it into a garden of fruits and flowers. For this purpose, he brought earth from the banks of the lake, and built ten terraces on arches, one above the other, to the top of the island on which the palace is posted. This labor has produced a most singular pyramid of exotics and other plants, which make a fine show, and constitute the chief ornament of this miracle of artificial beauty. The orange and lemon trees are in great luxuriance, and the grove of laurels (L. nobilis) is hardly to be equalled any where in Europe ; two of them in particular are said to be the largest known in existence." ( Wilson's Tours, vol. iii. p. 449.)

At Monza, the royal residence, near Milan, is the finest garden scenery in Italy. The park contains upwards of 3000 acres, of a gently varied fertile surface. It is chiefly laid out in the regular style ; but contains also an English garden of considerable extent and beauty. It is well watered, and the walks are not so numerous as to disturb the unity and repose of the scenes. The culinary, flower, botanic, and

Book I. GARDENING IN ITALY. 19

fruit gardens, orangeries, and hot-houses, are all good, and as well managed as the penuriousness of the present vice-king will admit. Very fine avenues lead from this residence to Milan. The whole was begun in Beauhamois' time, under the direction of Sig. Villaresi, one of the most scientific gardeners in Italy, and is still managed under his direction, but with greatly diminished resources.

There are various gardens pointed out to strangers as English, veramente Jnglese, near Milan, and also at Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, Porta, &c. ; and Buonaparte caused a small public garden to be made in Venice. " In many of the villas on the lake of Corao," Wilson observes, " it is most delightful to behold the lofty crags frowning over the highly cultivated gardens, with hot-houses of exotic plants, neat terraces, and ornamental summer-houses, subduing the natural wildness of the situation." Most of those which we visited were too much ornamented, and too full of walks, seats, arbors, and other ornaments, for that repose and simplicity which, according to our ideas, is essential to an English garden. Art, in most of these gardens, is as much avowed as in the French style ; whereas, in the true English garden, though art is employed, yet it is not avowed and ostentatiously displayed ; on the contrary, the grand object is to fol- low the directions of the Italians themselves, and study that the art " che tuttofa, nullo si scopre."

83. At Florence, the ducal gardens of Boboli are the most remarkable. They oc- cupy two sides of a conical hill, and part of a bottom, and consist of three parts ; a botanic and exotic garden close to the palace Pitti and the celebrated museum ; a kitchen- garden, near the hill top ; and, a geometric garden which occupies the greater part of the hill. The scene abounds in almost every ingredient of the style in which it is laid out. The ground being very steep, almost all the walks slope considerably ; but a few, conducted horizontally, are level, and serve, if the expression be admissible, as rest- ing walks. There are abundance of seats, arbors, vases, planted with agaves and orange-trees ; and a prospect tower on the summit, from which, as well as from many other points, are obtained fine views of Florence and the environs. In the lower part or bottom is a handsome basin of water, with an island and fountains in the centre, verged with a marble parapet ornamented with vases of orange-trees, and surrounded by shorn hedges and statues. On the whole, nothing has been spared to render these gardens complete of their kind, and the effect is perhaps as perfect as the situation, from its irre- gularity and steepness, admits of. The public promenade to the Cassino, deserves notice as among the best in Italy. It consists of shady avenues, extending for several miles on a flat surface near the Arno, varied by occasional views of villas and distant scenery. The trees are chiefly elms and chestnuts. There are numerous private gardens round Florence, but none of them remarkable. The fortuitous scenery of Vallombrosa and other romantic situations, are the grand attractions for strangers. On mount Fiesole and thence to Bologna, are some country-seats with lodges, and winding approaches, which, considering the arid soil, are highly beautiful, and come the nearest to those of England of any in the warmer regions of Italy. The Tuscans, Sigismondi ob- serves (Agr. Tosc), are the more to be condemned for having neglected gardening, since their countryman, Proposto Lastri, has rendered De Lille's poem in Italian in a style equal to the original. But the gens a leur aise, and the nobles, he says, have no love of rural nature, and only come into the country after vintage to shoot for a few days, and indulge in feasting. They come in large parties with their ladies, and in a few weeks expend what they have been niggardly laying aside during the rest of the year. He men- tions the Chevalier Forti at Chiari, and Sig. Falconcini at Ceretto, as having delightful gardens ; adding that the country-seats of the Luquois are in the best taste of any in Italy.

84. The villas of Rome, Forsyth observes, are to this day the " ocelli Italice." Their cassinos generally stand to advantage in the park, light, gay, airy, and fanciful. In the ancient villas the buildings were low, lax, diffused, and detached. In the modern, they are more compact, more commodious, and rise into several stories. In both, the gardens betray the same taste for the unnatural, the same symmetry of plan, architectural groves, devices cut in box, and tricks performed by the hydraulic organ. [Rem. on Italy, 173.) A few cardinals, he elsewhere observes, created all the great villas of Rome. Their riches, their taste, their learning, their leisure, their frugality, — all conspired in this single object. While the eminent founder was squandering thousands on a statue, he would allot but one crown for his own dinner. He had no children, no stud, no dogs to keep ; he built indeed for his own pleasure, or for the admiration of others ; but he embellished his country, he promoted the resort of rich foreigners, and he afforded them a high intel- lectual treat for a few pauls, which never entered into his pocket. This taste generally descends to his heirs, who mark their little reigns by successive additions to the stock. How seldom are great fortunes spent so elegantly in England ! How many are absorbed in the table, the field, or the turf ! Expenses which centre and end in the rich egotist himself ! What English villa is open like the Borghese, as a common drive to the whole metropolis? {Rem. on Italy, 216.)

The Villa Borghese is the most noted in the neighbourhood of Rome. It has a variety of surface formed by two hills and a dell, and a variety of embellishments, cassinos, temples, grottoes, aviaries, modern ruins, sculptured fountains, a crowd of statues, a lake, an aqueduct, a circus ; but it wants the more beautiful variety of an English garden ; for here you must walk in right lines, and turn, at right angles, fatigued with the monotony of eternal ilex. {Remarks, &c. 216.) Eustace says these gardens are laid out with some regard both for the new and the old system, because winding walks are to be found intersecting the long alleys. This is true ; but the whole is so frittered down by roads, walks, paths, and alleys, and so studded with statues and objects of art, as to want that repose, simplicity, and massive appearance, essential, at least, to an Englishman's idea of an English garden. Simplicity, however, is a beauty less relished among the nations of the continent than in this country, and lessrelished by the Italians than by any other continental nation.

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20 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

The Villa Panfili displays the most architectural gardens of any about Rome. Here, as Forsyth ob- serves, laurel porticoes of ilex, green scutcheons, and dipt coronets, are seen vegetating over half an acre; theatres of jets d'eau, geometrical terraces, built rocks, and measured cascades.

A number of other villas might be enumerated ; but as far as respects gardens, the description, if faithful, might be tiresome and monotonous. Even Eustace allows, that " howsoever Italian gardens may differ in extent and magnificence, their principal features are nearly the same ; the same with regard to artificial as well as natural graces. Some ancient remains are to be found in all, and several in most of them. They are all adorned with the same evergreens, and present, upon a greater or less scale, the same Italian and ancient scenery. They are in general much neglected, but for that reason the more ruraL" (Classical Tour, vol. i. chap. 18.)

85. At Frascati, Belvidere, a villa of Prince Borghese, commands most glorious pros- pects, and is itself a fine object, from the scenic effect of its front and approaches. Be- hind the palace is an aquatic stream, which flows from Mount Algid us, dashes pre- cipitately down a succession of terraces, and is tormented below into a variety of tricks. The whole court seems alive at the turning of a cock. Water attacks you on every side ; it is squirted in your face from invisible holes; it darts up in a constellation of jets d'eau ; it returns in misty showers, which present against the sun a beautiful Iris. Water is made to blow the trumpet of a centaur, and the pipe of a cyclops ; water plays two organs ; makes the birds warble, and the muses tune their reeds ; sets Pegasus neighing, and all Parnassus on music. " I remark," says Forsyth, " this magnificent toy as a speci- men of Italian hydraulics. Its sole object is to surprise strangers, for all the pleasure that its repetitions can impart to the owners is but a faint reflection from the pleasure of others."

86. At Naples the gardens possess the same general character as those of Rome, though, with the exception of Caserta, they are less magnificent.

The royal gardens at Portici are chiefly walled cultivated enclosures, abounding in oranges, figs, and grapes, with straight alleys and wooded quarters entirely for shade. There is one small department, of a few perches, devoted to the English taste ; but it is too small to give any idea of that style. There is also a spot called La Favorita, in which, says Starke (Letters, ii. 125.), the present king has placed swings and wooden horses, or hurly-burlies, (such as are to be seen at our fairs), for his own particular amusement, and that of his nobility. The approach to this garden is through the palace court, great part of which is occupied as a barrack by troops. The filth and stench of this court is incredible; and yet it is overlooked by the windows of the king's dining-room, who sat down to dinner, on his return from the chace, as we passed through the palace on the 2d of August, 1819. We know no scene to which it could be compared, but that of the courtof some of the large Russian inns in the suburbs of Petersburgh.

The gardens of Prince Leopold at Villa Franca almost adjoin those of the king. They are less extensive, but kept in much better order by a very intelligent German. The orange-groves and trellises in both gardens are particularly fine ; and in that of Prince Leopold, there is a tolerable collection of plants. There is in Naples a royal garden, in the geometric style, combining botany and some specimens of the English manner, which is now enlarging, and his the advantage of an elevated situation and fine marine views.

The Chiaja is a public garden on the quay, used as a promenade. The outline is a parallelogram, the area arranged in three alleys, with intermediate winding walks, fountains, rock-works, basins, statues, parterres with and without turf, and oranges, flowers, &c. in pots. It is surrounded by a parapet sur- mounted by an iron fence, and contains cassinos for gambling, cafes, baths, taverns, &c. The view to the bay, and the breezes thence arising, are delightful. It is justly reckoned one of the finest walking prome- nades in Italy.

Extensive gardens of pots and boxes are common on the roofs of the palaces, and other houses in Naples. Viewed from the streets they have a singular effect, and from their beauty and fragrance, from the fresh breezes in these elevated regions, and the comparative absence of that stench with which the lower atmo- sphere of Naples is almost continually charged, they are very agreeable to the possessors.

87. Tlie royal residence of Caserta is about seventeen miles from Naples. The palace, in which, as Forsyth observes, the late king sought grandeur from every dimension, is situated in an immense plain, and is a quadrangle, the front of which is upwards of seven hundred feet long. It was begun in 1752, roofed in 1757, but is not yet, and probably never will be finished. The park extends from the palace to a range of mountains at two miles distance, some of which it includes. It may be said to consist of four parts ; open pasture, almost without trees, near the palace ; woody scenery, or thick groves and copses, partly near to, but chiefly at a considerable distance from, the palace ; mountainous scenery devoted to game and the chace, at the extreme distance ; and an English garden on one side, skirting the mountains. There are besides, St. Lucio a large village, a silk-manu- factory, a farm, &c. ; all of which are described by different tourists ; minutely by Vasi, in his Guide to Naples and its Environs, — and plans of the whole are given by L. Van- vitelli, in his Disegni del Reale Palazzo di Caserta.

The cascade and canal of Caserta constitute its most remarkable feature, and that which renders this park, in our opinion, the most extraordinary in Europe. The water is begun to be collected above thirty miles' distance among the mountains, and after being conducted to a valley about five miles from Caserta, is carried over it by an aqueduct consisting of three tiers of arches, nearly two hundred feet high, and two thousand feet long. The volume of water is four feet wide by three and a half feet deep, and moves, as near as we could estimate, at the rate of one foot in two seconds. Arrived at the back of the mountain Gazzano, a tunnel is cut through it, and the stream bursting from a cave about halfway between the base and the summit, forms a cascade of fifty feet directly in front of the palace. The waters are now in a large basin, from which, under ground, tunnels and pipes proceed on two sides, for the purposes of supplying the lakes or rivers in the English garden, the fish-ponds, various jets d'eau, and for irrigation to maintain the verdure of the turf. From the centre of this basin proceeds a series of alternate canals and cascades of uniform breadth, and in a direct line down the slope of the hill, and along the plain to within a furlong or little more of the palace. Here it terminates abruptly, the waters being conveyed away under ground for other purposes. The effect of this series of canals and cascades, viewed from the garden-front of the palace, or from the middle entrance-arch, through that " long obscure portico or arcade which pierces the whole depth of the quadrangle, and acts like the tube of a telescope to the waters," is that of one continued sheet

Book I.

GARDENING IN ITALY.

21

of smooth or stagnant water resting on a slope ; or of a fountain which had suddenly burst forth and threatened to inundate the plain ; but for this idea the course of the water is too tame, tranquil, and regu- lar, and it looks more like some artificial imitation of water than water itself. In short the effect is still more unnatural than it is extraordinary ; for though jets and fountains are also unnatural, yet they pre- sent nothing repugnant to our ideas of the nature of things ; but a body of water seemingly reposing on a slope, and accommodating itself to the inclination of the surface, is a sight at variance with the laws of gravity. Unquestionably the cascade at the extremity is a grand object of itself; but the other cascades are so trifling, and so numerous, as in perspective, and viewed at a distance, to produce this strange effect of continuity of surface. As a proof that our opinion is correct we refer to the views of Caserta, which are got up by the Neapolitan artists for sale ; had these artists been able to avoid the appearance* in question, even by some departures from truth, there can be no doubt they would not have hesitated to do so. A bird's-eye view of this canal, in Vanvitelli's work {fig. 5.), gives but a very imperfect idea of the reality, as seen from the surface of the ground, and especially from the palace and lower parta of the park.

Forsyth seems to have paid little attention to this water, having been chiefly struck with the palace. Eustace says, " The palace is one of the noblest edifices of the kind in Europe ; the gardens extensive, re- gular, but except a part in the English style, uninteresting. From a reservoir on the mountain Gaezano, the water is precipitated down the declivity to the plain, where, collected in a long straight canal, it loses its rapidity and beauty, and assumes the appearance of an old fashioned stagnant pool." (Tour in Italy, vol. i. p. 602.) Wilson says, the cascade of Caserta might have been made the finest of its kind in the world ; but it has been spoiled by a love of formality, which has led the copious stream drizzling over regu- lar gradations of steps into a long stagnant canal. (Tours, &c. vol. ii. p. 217.)

The English garden of Caserta was formed by Grajffer, a German, author of a Catalogue of Herba- ceous Plants, who had been some time in England. He was sent to the king of Naples about 1760, by Sir Joseph Banks, and has formed and preserved as perfect a specimen of English pleasure-ground as any we have seen on the continent. The verdure of the turf is maintained in summer by a partially concealed system of irrigation ; and part of the walks were originally laid with Kensington gravel. Every exotic, which at that time could be furnished by the Hammersmith nursery, was planted, and many of them form now very fine specimens. Among these the Camellias, Banksias, Proteas, Magnolias, Pines, &c. have attained a large size, and ripen their seeds. There is a good kitchen and botanic garden, and extensive hot-houses, chiefly in the English form ; but now much out of repair. Indeed this remark will apply to the whole place, excepting the palace. Graeffer laid out the gardens of the Duke de San Gallo, at Naples, and various others. He was not liked by the peasants of St. Lucio, who, taking the advantage of him, when thrown from a cabriolet, stabbed him mortally before he could recover himself, in 1816.

88. In Sicily are some gardens of great extent. A few are mentioned by Swinburne ; and an account of one belonging to a Sicilian prince, remarkable for its collection of monsters, is given in Brydone's Tour.

Subsect. 2. Italian Gardening in respect to the Culture of Flowers and Plants of

Ornament,

89. Flowers appear to have been little cultivated by the Italians previously to the 10th century. The introduction of the Christian religion as a national worship, though at present favorable, was at first adverse to the use of flowers. Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, inveighed against their use with all their eloquence : and the rites of religion, then carried on in gloomy vaults, were not, as now, accom- panied by bands of music, statues, pictures, and enriched altars decorated with flowers. P. de Crescent in the beginning of the fourteenth century, mentions only the violet, lily, rose, gilly-flower, and iris. Commerce began to flourish in the century which succeeded, and various plants were introduced from the Eastern countries, by the wealthy of Venice and Genoa.

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22 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

90. The earliest private botanic garden was formed at Padua, by Gaspar de Gabriel, a wealthy Tuscan noble, at considerable expense. It was accomplished in 1525 ; and though not a public institution, it was open to all the curious. To this garden suc- ceeded, that of Corner at Venice, and Simonetta, at Milan ; those of some convents at Rome, and of Pinella, at Naples, with others enumerated by botanical historians. (C. Spreng. Hist. lib. iii. ; HallersBib. Bot. 21. j Tiraboschi's Stor. del Litt. Ital.; Gesner, Hort. German.; Stephanus de Re Hortense.)

91. The first public botanic garden established in Europe was that of Pisa, begun, accord- ing to Deleuze, in 1543, by Cosmo de Medici ; and of which Ghini, and Cesalpin, cele- brated botanists, were successively the directors. Belon, a French naturalist, who was at Pisa in 1555, was astonished at the beauty of the garden, the quantity of plants it con- tained, and the care taken to make them prosper. In 1591 the number of new plants was found so far accumulated as to render a larger garden necessary, and that space of ground was fixed on which is the present botanic garden ; two borders were destined for ornamental flowers, and a green-house was formed for such as were too tender for the open air. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, a great accession was obtained to the garden by the double flowers of Holland, then introduced in Italy for the first time. (Calvio, Hist. Pisanu) The example of Pisa was soon imitated by other cities and univer- sities in Italy and Germany. In 1545, (not 1533, as stated by Adamson-see Deleuze,) the public botanic garden of Padua was agreed on by the senate of Venice. It contained in 1581 four hundred plants cultivated in the open air, besides a number kept in pots to be taken into houses or sheds during winter. The garden of Bologna was next estab- lished by Pope Pius the Vth ; then that of Florence by the Grand Duke ; and afterwards that of Rome. From that time to the present day, the numbers'of botanic gardens have been continually increasing, so that there is now one belonging to almost every principal city in Italy ; an exertion the more remarkable, as botanic gardens in that country are proportionably more expensive than in England, from the necessity of conveying a stream of water to them, and forming a regular system of irrigation.

92. A taste for fiowers and ornamental plants has thus become general in Italy • and at the same time the means of gratification afforded, by the superabundant plants and seeds of these gardens being given away, or sold at very moderate prices to the curious. About this time also the Dutch made regular exchanges of their bulbous roots for the orange- trees of Genoa and Leghorn ; and the double night-smelling jessamine was introduced at Pisa from Spain, and so highly prized as to have a centinel placed over it by the governor. (Evelyn.) The use of flowers, it is probable, was never entirely laid aside in Italy as ornaments to female dress ; but in the progress of refinement their application in this way became more general, and more select sorts were chosen ; they became in de- mand, both gathered in bouquets, and with the entire plants in pots ; they were used as household ornaments both internal and external ; and the church, thinking that what pleased man must be pleasing to the gods ; or conforming to the taste of the times, and desirous of rendering religion as attractive as possible to the multitude, introduced flowers as decorations of altars and statues, and more especially in their fetes and processions. Pots and boxes of orange trees, pomegranates, bays, oleanders, myrtles, and other plants, are now let out by the day, for decorating the steps and approaches to altars, or sold for ornamenting roofs, balconies, virandas, courts, yards, passages, halls, staircases, and even shops and warehouses in most of the large towns of Italy. Notwithstanding this there is a recent instance on record of a lady residing in Rome, commencing a law-suit against her neighbour, for filling her court-yard with orange-trees, the smell of the flowers of which was by the other considered as a nuisance.

For the church the white lily (Lilium candidum) is in great demand, with which the Madona, or Madre di Bio, is decorated as an emblem of her virginity. The typha ( T. latifolia) is much used when in seed to put into the hands of statues of Christ, being considered as the reed with which the soldiers handed him a sponge of vinegar. In Poland, where the typha has not been easily procured, we have seen leeks in the flower-stalk used as a substitute. The rose, the stock-gilly-flower, the jessamine, Sec. are next in demand, and are used in common with such others as are presented gratis, or offered for sale, as decorations indiscriminately to the crowd of statues and pictures of saints which decorate the churches, to private houses, and as ornaments of female dress.

On occasions of public rejoicing flowers are also much used in Italy. Favorite princes and generals are received into towns and even villages through triumphal arches decorated with flowers, and the ground is also sometimes strewed with them. The lives of Buonaparte, Murat, and Beauharnois, afford many examples. The Emperor of Austria made a tour of Italy in 1819, and though every where disliked, every where walking on a mine ready to explode, he was in many places so received ; and at the famous cascade of Marmora, near Terni, a slight arcade, 300 yards in length, was formed to guide the steps of the imperial visitor to the best point of view. It was covered with intersecting wreaths of flowers and foliage, and the sides ornamented with festoons of box, myrtle, and bay. At Milan, a very gay city, flowers are greatly prized, and in the winter season are procured from the peculiarly warm and ever verdant gardens between Genoa and Nervi. A louis-d'or, we were informed, is sometimes paid for a single nosegay. During the carnival the demand is great throughout Italy.

93. Florists' fiowers, especially the bulbous kinds, do not succeed well in the dry warm climate of Italy. Fine varieties of the hyacinth, tulip, ranunculus, auricula, polyanthus, &c. are soon lost there, and obliged to be renewed from more temperate countries. They excel, however, in the culture of the tuberose, which forms an article of comma ce

Book I.

GARDENING IN ITALY,

23

at Genoa, as does the paper narcissus (Ar. orientalis) at Naples. In roses, jessamines, oleanders, oranges, they also excel ; and also in most single flowers not natives of cold climates. Sig. Villaresi, already mentioned, has raised from seeds of the Bengal rose {Rosa indica), impregnated promiscuously with other roses, upwards of fifty distinct varieties, many of which are of great beauty, and very fragrant. In general, flowers and ornamental plants are most in demand, and cultivated to the greatest degree of perfection in Lombardy, of which the flower-markets of Milan and Venice afford most gratifying proofs. Many of the Chinese, New Holland, and some of the Cape trees and shrubs, thrive well, and blossom luxuriantly in the open air in the warmer regions, as in S. di Negro's garden, at Genoa, and those of Pisa and Caserta. Evelyn says, he saw at Florence, in 1664, a rose grafted on an orange-tree ; the same tricks are still passed off with the rose, jessamine, oleander, myrtle, &c. at Genoa, and even in some parts of Lombardy.

94. The taste for flowers and plants of ornament is rather on the decline than otheruise in Italy. Much depends on the taste of the princes in this as in every other matter, and unfortunately those of Italy are at present mere ciphers. The king of Naples knows no pleasures but those of the table, the seraglio, and the chace. For the latter enjoy- ment, the Pope has kindly given him a dispensation to hunt on Sundays. The Pope is debarred from pleasure by his office ; the grand Duke of Tuscany has some taste for plants, but more for a heavy purse ; his relation, the vice-king of Lombardy, is more a priest than a prince ; though he has some fondness for succulent exotics, of the common sorts of which, he has a large collection. The king of Sardinia is an old man, and a mere king Dei gratia.

Subsect. 3. Italian Gardening in respect to its Products for the Kitchen and the

Dessert.

95. The Italian fruits are nearly those of the Romans, to which they have made but few additions, if we except the orange and the pine-apple. The orange is supposed to have been introduced between the time of Pliny and Palladius ; it is the fruit in which they excel, more from climate and soil than science. There are supposed to be nearly a hun- dred varieties of this fruit in Italy ; but in the orange-nurseries at Nervi, it is not easy to make out more than forty or fifty distinct sorts. These have mostly been obtained from seeds. They have not the Mandarine orange, nor some varieties of shaddock (C. decumana), which we possess. The most regular and systematic orange-orchards are at Nervi ; and the largest trees around Naples, at Sorenta, Amalphi, &c. The more rare sorts are kept in conservatories at Rome, and the largest house, and best collection, is that of the Borghese. At Florence and Milan, all the sorts required to be housed during winter, but at Hieres and Nice in France, and at Genoa and Nervi, they stand the common winters in the open air.

96. The stone fruits in which they excel are the peach and cherry. There are above twenty varieties of peaches cultivated in the neighbourhood of Rome and Naples ; and these fruits, grown on standard trees, as apples and pears are in this country, arrive at a very high degree of perfection. They have few sorts of apricots and nectarines, and not many plums ; but their Regina Claudia, or gages, are excellent. Cherries are everywhere excellent in Italy, especially in Tuscany. The Milan or Morella cherry, is noted for its prolific qualities, and for having a consistency and flavor somewhat resembling the Morchella esculenta, or morel.

97. The chief berry of Italy is the grape : their varieties are not so numerous as in France or Spain ; and are, for the most part, the result of long growth on one soil and situation. Vineyard grapes are indifferent to eat in most parts of Lombardy, and in the best districts are equalled if not excelled by muscats, sweet-waters, muscadines, and other sorts grown in hot-houses in this country. The grape is the only berry that thrives in Italy. It is not kept low as in France; but elevated, on trellises near nouses and in gardens (fig. 6.), and trained

to long poles or trees in the fields. Collec- tions of gooseberries from Lancashire have been introduced at Leghorn, Genoa, and Monza; and, grown in the shade, they thrive moderately at the gardens of the latter place. The currant, the raspberry, and the strawberry, though natives of the Alps and Apennines, do not thrive in the gar- dens, but are brought to market from the woods ; and so is the black mulberry, which is there cultivated for the leaves, as hardier than the white, and which Sigismondi at at one time considered as a fruit elsewhere unknown.

98. Kernel-fruits in general, especially pears, are excellent in the north of Italy ; but indifferent in the warmer regions. Services in considerable variety abound in Piedmont, and part of Lombardy.

99. The pine-apple is cultivated in a few places in Italy, but with little success, excepting at Florence and Milan, gardens at Portici, but weak, yellow-leaved, and covered with insects.

garden, and in one or two other villas near Rome, are little better. By far the best and greatest quantity are in the vice-royal gardens of Monza. The last king of Sardinia sent his gardener, Brochieri, to England

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There are a few in the Royal The few grown in the Pope's

24 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

to studv their culture. He returned, and in 1777 published a tract on them, with a plan of a pit for their reception ; and in this way they are universally grown in Italy. Such, however, is the exhalation pro- duced in this dry climate from leaves so full of pores, as are those of the pine, and such the want of attention to supplying large pots and plenty of water, that the plants are generally of a pale sickly hue, and the fruit of verv small size. . - .

100 Of the Melon tribe, the variety in Italy is endless, of every degree of flavor, from the richness ol tne cantaieupe. to the cool, icy, sub-acid taste of the citrouille or water-melon. Too little care is bestowed in selecting good fruits for seeds, and in preventing hybridism from the promiscuous intercourse with sur- rounding sorts of cucumis; and, hence, seeds sent from Italy to this country are little to be depended on, and generally produce varieties inferior to those of British growth. There are a few sorts of cucumbers, and though there are a great number of gourds and pompions cultivated, the sorts, or conspicuous varieties of both, are less numerous than in this country. Italian cucumbers are never so succulent as those grown in our humid frames by dung-heat. it_j_ «.- 4k,

The love-apple, ess-plant, and capsicum, are extensively cultivated near Rome and Jsaples for the kitchen; the fruit of the first attaining a larger size, and exhibiting the most grotesque forms. It is singular! that in Sicily this fruit, when ripe, becomes sour, and so unfit for use, that the inhabitants are supplied with it fromNaples. , . . ,

101 Want of demand for the fruits of the northern climates precludes their production. Were it other- wise "there can be no doubt means would soon be resorted to, to produce them in as great perfection as we do their fruits here ; all that is necessary, is to imitate our climate by abstracting or excluding heat, and supplying moisture ; but luxury in Italy has not yet arrived to the degree adequate to produce this effect.

W> Of culinary vesetables, the Italians began with those left them by the Romans, and they added the potatoe to their number as soon as, or before, we did. They now possess all the sorts known in this country, and use some plants as salads, as the chiccory, ox-eye daisy, ruccola, or rocket (Brassica eruca, L.), which are little used here The turnip and carrot tribe, and the cabbage, savoy, lettuce, and radish, thrive best in the northern parts : but the potatoe grows well every where, and the Italian autumn is favorable to the erowth of the cauliflowers, and broccolis, which are found of large size at Rome, Florence, and Bologna, in the months of September and October ; and very large at Milan, all the summer and autumn. The le- guminous tribe thrive every where ; but in some places the entire pod of the kidney-bean is so dry and hard as to prevent its use as a substitute for peas. In short, though the Italians have the advantage over the rest of Europe in fruits, that good is greatly counterbalanced by the inferiority of their culinary vege- tables Much to remedy the defect might be done by judicious irrigation, which in the south of Italy, and even in Lombardy, is so far necessary as to enter into the arrangement of every kitchen-garden. Shading, blanching, and change of seed will effect much ; but the value of good culinary vegetables is not known to the greater part of the wealthy Italians.

103. Horticulture has made little progress in Italy. It is not in Italy, Simond observes, that horticulture is to be studied ; though nowhere is more produced from the soil by- culture, manure, and water ; but forcing or prolonging crops is unknown ; every thing is sown at a certain season, and grows up, ripens, and perishes together. The variety is not great ; they have only three or four sorts of cabbage, not more of kidney-beans, and one of pea ; the red and white beet, salsify, scorzonera, chervile, sorrel, onion, schallot, Jerusalem artichoke, are in many parts unknown : but they have the cocomera, or water- melon everywhere. In Tuscany and Lombardy, it is raised on dung, and then transplanted in the fields, and its sugary icy pulp forms the delight of the Italians during the whole month of August. Though they have walls round some gardens, they are ignorant of the mode of training trees on them. {Agr. Tosc.)

; Subskct. 4. Italian Gardening, in respect to the planting of Timber-trees and Hedges.

104. The self-sown forests of the Alps and Apennines are the chief resources of the Italians for timber ; and timber- trees are chiefly propagated for parks, public walks, and lining the great roads. The vine is still, in many places, trained on the poplar and elm {fig. 7.); but in Tuscany and Lombardy, where the culture is deemed superior, the common maple {A. campestre) and flowering ash (Ornus europcea) are preferred. {Sigismondi, Agr. Toscan. ; Chateau- vieux, Lettres, &c. 1812.) The most common tree for every other purpose is the narrow-leaved elm, which lines the road from Rome to Naples, for upwards of twenty miles together. Near Milan, the Lombardy poplar is a great deal _ used- but a late author, Gautieri {Delia Influsso del Boschi, &c 1817,) argues in favor of cutting down, rather than planting in the Milanese plains. The finest avenues and public equestrian promenades in Italy are those around Milan and at Monza ; the trees are of various sorts, as the tulip-tree, platanus, lime, acacia, melia zederach, various oaks, chestnuts beeches, &c. ; they were planted in Beauharnois' time ; and such is the rapidity of vegetation in this climate, that already the tulip-trees produce blossoms, and in seven years more the effect will be complete. The sorts are every where mixed, in order that the failure or defective growth of one species may have a chance of being compensated bv the growth of that, or of those adjoining ; or that if a malady were to attack one sort of tree it might not lead to continuous defalcation. Most of those trees were planted by VUhresi, who, before the late political changes, had constantly under his direction not fewer than three thousand men for public and royal improvements.

105 The timber-trees of the native forests of Italy are chiefly oak, chestnut, and beech ; the under<n-owths are of numerous species, including the arbutus, ilex, and myrtle. This class of forests skirts the Alpine mountains, and covers, in many places, the Apennine hills In higher regions the larch abounds, and in sheltered dells the silver fir. Ihe

Book I. GARDENING IN ITALY. 25

stone and cluster pine are confined to the lower regions, as the hills of Tuscany, the vales of Arno, Tiber, &c.

106. Hedges are in general use in Italy, but are very imperfectly formed and managed. In Lombardy the hawthorn is a good deal used ; but in Tuscany, the States of the Church, and those parts of the Neapolitan territory which are hedged, the rhamnus pali- urus is the prevailing plant, mixed, however, with the pyracantha, pomegranate, myrtle, asparagus retrofractus, and with wild roses, brambles, hazels, reeds, &c. seldom without gaps and holes, open or filled up with dead bushes or reeds. The willow alone often forms a hedge in Lombardy, where the shoots are valuable for tying up the vine.

Subsect. 5. Italian Gardening, as empirically practised.

107. Gardens in Italy are common to the rural class of citizens. It is a general remark of travellers, and of acknowledged truth, that the state of cottage gardens indicates the state of the cottagers ; and those of Italy confirm the justness of the observation. Almost the only plants grown in them are gourds and Indian corn. In Tuscany and Lombardy some of the cabbage tribe, the kidney-bean, and occasionally the potatoe are to be seen, but rarely any thing else. The gardens of the farmers are somewhat better, especially in the northern districts, where they often contain patches of hemp, potatoes, parsnips, lettuce, and some flowers and fruit-trees. The gardens of small proprietors are still better stocked ; those of wealthy bankers and merchants are generally the best in Italy. The gardens of the more wealthy nobles are only superior by their extent, and are dis- tinguished as such, by having more or less of an accompanying park. The gardens of the convents are, in general, well cultivated, and rich in fruits and culinary vegetables, with some flowers and evergreens for church decorations. The priests assist in their cultivation, and some of these men are much attached to gardening.

108. For commercial purposes gardening is chiefly practised by market-gardeners, who also grow flowers, act as orchardists, and often make wine. There are hardly any nurseries for trees and shrubs in Italy, if we except those for orange-trees at Nervi, and two small ones for general purposes at Milan. Those who form new gardens are chiefly supplied from France, or from their friends, or from private gardens ; most of which last sell whatever they have got to spare.

109. The operative part of gardening in Italy is performed more by labourers than by regu- lar apprentices and journeymen ; and thus good practical gardeners are more the result of accident than of design. The great defect of both is the want of a taste for order and neatness. The Italians are particularly unskilful in the management of plants in pots, and especially exotics, which require protection by glass. These are put into houses with upright or slightly declining glass fronts, and opaque roofs ; there they remain during a winter of from three to five months ; want of light and air renders their leaves yellow and cadaverous ; and when they are taken out they are placed in the most exposed parts of the garden, often on parapets, benches, or stages. Here the sudden excess of light soon causes them to lose their leaves, which they have hardly time to regain before the period arrives for replacing them in the conservatory or hot-house. We know of few exceptions to this censure, excepting at Monza, and Caserta, where they are kept in winter, in glass-roofed houses, as in England, and placed out in summer under the shade of poplars or high walls. Dr. Oct. Tazetti, professor of rural economy at Florence, who lectures in a garden in which specimens are displayed of the leading sorts of Italian field and garden -culture, acknowledged the justness of this remark.

1 10. The artists or professors are of two classes. First, The architects, who adopt the rural branch of their art, {architetti rustici,) and who give plans for parks, chiefly or almost entirely in the geometric style, to be executed under their direction, and that of the head gardener. Secondly, The artist-gardeners, (artisti giardinieri,) who are generally the gardeners, or directors of gardens, of some great establishment, public or private, and who give plans for gardens, chiefly in what is there considered the English manner, and for kitchen-gardens ; and as in England, either direct, by occasional visits, or undertake bv contract, their execution and future occasional inspection.

Subsect. 6. Italian Gardening, as a Science, and as to the Authors it has produced.

111. By the establishment of professorships of botany and botanic gardens, in the sixteenth century, the Italians have materially contributed to the study of the vegetable kingdom, without some knowledge of the physiology of which, the practice of gardening must be entirely empirical. Malpighi is considered the father of vegetable physiology in Italy. It must be confessed, however, that the scientific knowledge of the Italians is chiefly confined to their professors and learned men : the practical gardener is yet too ignorant either to study or understand the subject ; too much prejudiced to old opinions to re- ceive new ideas ; and, partly from climate, but chiefly from political and religious slavery, too indifferent to wish to be informed. Some exceptions must be made in favor of such gardeners as have been apprenticed in botanic and eminent gardens, or under intelligent Germans, who are here and there to be found superintending the gardens of the nobles.

26 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

The bastardising of the cucumis tribe, by proximity, and the striking phenomena of the male and female hemp, have introduced some vague ideas of the sexuality of vegetables ; but the use of leaves, by far the most important knowledge which a gardener can possess, seems no where understood by ordinary master-gardeners. Grafting and layering are practised without any knowledge of the effects of the returning sap, or of the exclusion of air and light. Nothing can be worse than the practice of budding orange-trees at Nervi ; to be convinced of which, it is only necessary to compare the plants imported from thence, with those brought from Malta or Paris. The culture of the vine, the olive, and the fig, belongs to the rural economy of the country ; that of the vine is abundantly careless, and the practice of the caprification of the fig, though laughed at by the pro- fessors, is still followed in various places near Rome and Naples.

112. Religious and lunar observances are still followed by the gardeners in most parts of Italy. With the Romans it was customary before any grand operation of agriculture was undertaken, to consult or invoke the god of that department, as of Flora, Pomona, &c. and to pay attention to the age of the moon and other signs. A good deal of this description of ceremony is still carried on in general economy, by the priests and farmers, and gardening has not yet entirely thrown off the same badge of ignorance and religious slavery. Many gardeners regulate their sowings of kitchen-crops by the moon, others call the priests to invoke a blessing on large breadths of any main crop ; some, on minor occasions, officiate for themselves, and we have seen a poor market- gardener at Savonna muttering a sort of grace to the virgin over a bed of new-sown onions. Father Clarici, a priest who published Istoria e Culture delle Piante, &c. so late as 1726, countenances most of these practices, and describes many absurd and foolish ceremonies used for procuring good crops, and destroying insects.

113. Of the Italian authors on gardening, few or none are original. Filippo Re has written a great many books, and may be compared to our Bradley. Silvo Sigismondi, of Milan, has written a work on English gardening, resembling that of Hirschfield, of which it is, in great part, a translation. Clarici is a very copious writer on culinary gardening, and the culture of flowers ; and the most approved writer on the orange tribe is Gallesio of Savonna.

Sect. II. Of the Revival, Progress, and present State of Gardening in Holland and

Flanders.

114. Gardening was first brought to a high degree if perfection in Holland and the Netherlands. The crusades, in the twelfth century, are generally supposed to have excited a taste for building and gardening in the north of Europe. But from Ste- phanus and Gesner, it appears that a taste for plants existed among the Dutch, even previously to this period. It is to be regretted that scarcely any materials are to be found from which to compose such a history as this interesting circumstance requires. Harte {Essays on Agriculture) conjectures that the necessities arising from the original barrenness of the soil (that of Flanders having been formerly like what Arthur Young de- scribes Norfolk to have been nearly a century ago), together with a certain degree of libertv, the result of the remoteness of the situation from kings and priests, may have contributed to improve their agriculture ; and that the wealth acquired by the commercial men of Holland, then the most eminent in the world, enabled them to indulge in country-houses and gardens, and to import foreign plants. To this we may add, that the climate and soil are singularly favorable for horticulture and floriculture, the two departments in which the Dutch are most eminent.

Subsect. 1. Dutch Gardening, as an Art of Design and Taste.

115. The Dutch are generally considered as having a particular taste in gardening, yet their gardens, Hirschfield observes, appear to differ little in design from those of the French. The characteristics of both are symmetry and abundance of ornaments. The only difference to be remarked is, that the gardens of Holland are more confined, more covered with frivolous ornaments, and intersected with still, and often muddy pieces of water. The gardens of Ryswick, Houslaerdyk, and Sorgvliet were, in the beginning of the last century, the most remarkable for geometrical beauty of form, richness in trees and plants, and careful preservation. It is singular, our author observes, that the Dutch are so fond of intersecting their gardens with canals and ditches of stagnant water, which, so far from being agreeable, are muddy and ugly, and fill the air with unwhole- some vapours. Yet they carry this taste, which has no doubt originated in the nature of their country, to the East Indies ; and the numerous country-houses belonging to the Dutch settlement in Batavia are all furnished with gardens and canals like those in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam ; as if to render the unwholesome air of that country still more dangerous. Every field is there crossed by a canal ; and houses on eminences are surrounded at great expense by moats and draw-bridges like those of the Hague. Such is the influence of habit, and the love of country ; and, therefore, how-.

Cook I.

GARDENING IN HOLLAND.

27

ever at variance with local circumstances, and sometimes even with utility, it cannot be altogether condemned.

116. Grassy slopes and green terraces and ivalks are more common in Holland than in any other country of the continent, because the climate and soil are favorable for turf; and these verdant slopes and mounds may be said to form, with their oblong canals, the characteristics of the Dutch style of laying out grounds.

117. Hague, the Versailles and Kensington of Holland, and in fact the most magnificent village in Europe, contains two royal palaces with their gardens in the ancient style. Evelyn, in 1641, describes them as " full of ornament, close walks, statues, marbles, grottoes, fountains, and artificial music ;" and of the village he says, " beautiful lime-trees are set in rows before every man's house." Sir J. E. Smith {Tour on the Continent, vol. i.) described them in 1783, the one garden as full of serpentine and the other as full of straight lines. In 1814, these gardens had lost much of their former beauty, partly from age and decay, but principally from neglect. Jacob {Travels in Germany), in the same year, found them formal and crowded with high trees. Neill, in 1817, found in them nothing becoming royalty.

118. At Broeck and Alkmaar the ancient style is still maintained in its purity in the villa gardens. M. Seterveldt's garden near Utrecht is also a carefully preserved specimen. Here the grand divisions of the garden are made by tall thick hedges of beech, hornbeam, and oak, and the lesser by yew and box. There are avenue walks, and berceau walks, with openings in the shape of windows in the sides, verdant houses, rustic seats {fig. 8.), canals, ponds, grottoes, fountains, statues, and other devices ; "and," adds the horticultural tourist, "we were struck with this circumstance, that every thing in this garden has its most exact counterpart: if there be a pond, or walk, or statues, or a group of evergreens, on one side; the same may, with confidence, be predicted on the other side of the garden ; so that the often quoted couplet of Pope, ' Grove nods at grove, &c.' can no where be better exemplified." {Hort. Tour, 249.)

119. At Brussels, among other curiosities, Evelyn mentions a hedge of jets cTeau, lozenge-fashion, surrounding a parterre ; and " the park within the walls of the city furnished with whatever may render it agreeable, melancholy, and country-like." It contained " a stately heronry, divers springs of water, artificial cascades, walks, grottoes, statues^ and root-houses." This park was considerably enlarged some years ago; the then decayed root-houses, grottoes, and more curious water- works removed, and the whole divided by broad sanded paths, and decorated with good statues, seats, fountains, and cafes for refreshment.

3

--^-Si* •.-'-^*<<^*

1 20. The modem, or English style of gardening, Sir J. E. Smith informs us, was "quite the fashion" in Holland, in 1783; but neither the surface of the ground, the confined limits of territorial property, nor the general attention to frugality and economy, are favorable to this style. Some attempts, on a small scale, may be seen from the canals, but we know of no extensive parks and pleasure-grounds in this manner.

121. An example of a Flemish garden in the English style (Jig. 9.) is given by Kraft; it is of small size, but varied by the disposition of the trees, rustic seats, and raised surfaces ; and surrounded, as Dutch and Flemish gardens usually are, by a canal. It was laid out by Charpentier, gardener to the senate of France, in the time of Napoleon.

122. The villa of M. Bertrand of Bruges is thus noticed in the Caledonian Horticultural

Tour : —

It has extensive grounds, and is flat, but well varied by art. Where the straight walks cross each other at right angles, the centre of the point of intersection is shaped into an oblong parterre, resem- bling a basket of flowers, and containing showy geraniums in pots, and gaudy flowers of a more hardy kind planted in the earth.

Some things are in very bad taste. At every resting-place, some kind of conceit is provided for sur- prising the visitant : if he sit down, it is ten to one but the seat is so contrived as to sink under him ; if he enter the grotto, or approach the summer-house, water is squirted from concealed or disguised fountains, and he does not find it easy to escape a wetting. The dial is provided with several gnomons, calculated to show the corresponding hour at the chief capital cities of Europe ; and also with a lens so placed, that during sunshine, the priming of a small cannon falls under its focus just as the sun reaches the meridian, when of course the cannon is discharged.

The principal ornament of the place consists in a piece of %vater, over which a bridge is thrown ; at one end of the bridge is an artificial cave fitted up like a lion's den, the head of a lion cut in stone peeping from the entrance. Above the cave is a pagoda, which forms a summer-house three stories high. At the top is a cistern which is filled by means of a forcing-pump, and which supplies the mischievous fountains already mentioned.

The' little lawns near the mansion-house are decorated with many small plants of the double pome- granate, sweet bav, laurustinus, and double myrtle, planted in large ornamented flower-pots and in tubs. These plants are all trained with a stem three or four feet high, and with round bushy heads after the manner of pollard willows in English meadows. The appearance produced by a collection of such plants is inconceivably stift", to an eye accustomed to a more natural mode of training. Eight American aloes {Agave Americana), also in huge Dutch flower-pots, finish the decoration of the lawn, and it must be confessed, harmonize very well with the formal evergreens just described. A very good collection of orange-trees in tubs was disposed along the sides of the walks in the flower-garden : two of the myrtle- leaved variety were excellent specimens. All of these were pollarded in the style of the evergreen plants. The soil of the place, being a mixture of tine vegetable mould, resembling surface peat-earth, with a considerable proportion of white sand, seems naturally congenial to the growth of American shrubs ; and,

28

HISTORY OF GARDENING.

Part I.

indeed, rhododendrons, magnolias, and azaleas thrive exceedingly. In the open border of the flower- garden we saw dahlias in great vigour and beauty.

Several kinds of tender plants were plunged in the open border for summer, particularly the Peruvian heliotrope {Heliotropium Peruvianum), the specimens of which were uncommonly luxuriant, and, being now in full flower, spread their rich fragrance all around. The European heliotrope [H. Europarum) is likewise not uncommon in the flower-borders.

In the Jruit-garden we first saw pear and apple trees trained en pyr amide or en quenouille' i. e. pre- serving only an upright leader, and cutting in the lateral branches every year.

The hot-houses cover ike north side of the fruit-garden. In the centre is a stove or hot-house for the most tender plants; on each side of this is a green-house for sheltering more hardy exotics during winter ; and at each extremity is a house partly occupied with peach-trees, and partly with grape vines. In the space of ground before the houses are ranges of pine pits and melon frames. One frame is dedi- cated to a collection of cockscombs (Cslosia critata), and these certainly form the boast of M. Bertrand's garden ; they are of the dwarfish variety, but large or strong of their kind, and in brilliancy and variety of colour, they can scarcely be excelled.

123. The villa of M. Meufemeester and the place of Marieleerne, in the neighbourhood of Ghent, are described, but they were both in very bad order, though tolerably laid out, and having a good many hot- houses.

124, The vilta ofM. Hopsomere is remarkable for three acres covered with groups of American plants of great size and in the highest degree of luxuriance. An irregular piece of water expands itself among the groups, and forms numerous bays, islets, sinuosities, &c. The surface is generally of turf, but in some places in earth, with edgings of lieuth to the walks ; the walks are without gravel ; and the gardener, as in the other places visited, was wretchedly habited, without shoes or stockings, and could not read. (Hort. Tour, 74.)

125. The scat of Madame Vilain Quatorze (Jig. 10.), like most of the others mentioned, and villas in general in this country, is interspersed with water, and the boundary of the demesne, instead of being a wall, hedge, or belt of plantation, is a broad canal, over which of course is seen the adjacent country. The grounds are of considerable extent, and include a farm, pleasure-ground, kitchen and flower garden. A plan of a part of the grounds round the bouse has been given in the horticultural tour, in which the fol- lowing objects are indicated : —

A hot-house for erotic plants, (a)

An aviary with shvubs for the birds to perch upon. (6)

Gardener's room, (c)

Green -house. Entrance hy flight of wooden steps. (</)

Store for exotic plants. (-) "

Dry stove. (/)

Picture-gallery of a considerable height. It has an arched roof, ard is lighted from the top. (g)

Dwelling-house. (A)

A large mirror is placed at the end of the passage. Lamps are suspended from the ceilings of the house, gallery, green- house, and stoves, at different places ( + ). When lighted, the whole line, from the one extremity to the other, must be reflected by the mirror, (i)

Grape and peach" houses. Peach trees are planted at the back wall of each, and vines at the front, {le, A) Pits for gTeen-house and stove plants. (/, /, /, /) Pits for melons, cucumbers, and other tender plants, [m m) Large bam. (n) Stable and cow-houses, (o) Part of the kitchen-garden. (/>) Part of the pine-apple stoves, (q)

Corn fields, and a orop of Indian com, wheat, hemp, &c. (r)

The principal floor of the house and the picture gallery are

upon the same level, but there is a rise of a few -,teps to the

floors of the stove and green-house, which are elevated above the ground more than nine fleet.

126. The place of M. Smetz is the finest near Antwerp. It was laid out in 1752 partly in the Dutch and partly in the English taste, and contains at present, scenes of tonsile evergreens, vistas, canals, lakes, secret water-works, caves, tombs, a lawn with a flock of stone sheep, a shepherd and dogs, dwarfs, a drunkard, and other paltry contrivances. There are, however, good span-roofed hot-houses, rustic seats, fine exotic trees, especially the purple beech (which here seeds freely, and comes purple from the seed), catalpa and liquidamber, fine collections of dahlias, asclepias tuberosa, and lilium superbum, in extensive groups ; and on the whole " as many natural beauties as can be expected in a flat country, and instances of good taste and judicious management more than counterbalanced by those of an opposite description." (Hort. Tour, 110.)

127. The villa of M. Caters de Wolfe near Antwerp is remarkable for two elegant curvilinear hot-houses, erected by Messrs. Bailey of London, and glazed with plate glass. Their effect surpasses any thing of the kind on the continent. A rich collection of the choicest exotics has lately been procured from the Hackney nursery.

Book I. GARDENING IN HOLLAND. 29

128. The gardens round Rotterdam are generally many feet below the level of the canal. On the Cingle, a public road which surrounds.the city are, a continued series of garden-houses nearly a mile in extent; these miniature villas (lust hofs) being separated from each other only by wooden partitions, which are generally neatly painted. To these the citizens with their wives retire on Sunday to smoke and take coffee. (Hort. Tour, &c. 127.)

129. The palace-garden at Haerlem formerly occupied by King Louis, and originally the property of the celebrated banker, Hope, is in no respect remarkable as to design ; but pines are grown there better than in most gardens in Holland, and strawberries are successfully forced.

130. The Due d' Are ■mberg's seat nearEnghien, like many others in Flandersand Holland, was ruined during the excesses of the French revolution ; but the Duke is now restoring it, and has begun with the gardens rather than with the house. Extensive hot-houses are erected and many new fruit-trees planted. The finest part of the park was not injured, and the horticultural tourists visited the celebrated temple of the grande etoile. " This temple is of a heptangular shape, and at the angles on every side are two parallel columns placed about a foot apart. From the seven large sides proceed as many broad, straight, and long avenues of noble trees, affording rich prospects of the distant country in all these directions ; and from the seven angles, and seen between the columns, proceed an equal number of small and narrow alleys, each ter- minated by some statue, vase, bust, or other ornament. The temple is surrounded by a moat lined with polished marble. The old orange-grove is situated at the end ot the avenue. It is one hundred and seventy feet long, and twenty-seven feet wide, and contains one hundred and eight orange-trees in tubs, many of them, as is the case in different old family-seats of the Netherlands, presents from the kings of Spain 200, 300, and 400 years ago. The trees show straight stems of six or eight feet, and globular heads, from which, according to continental practice, protruding shoots and blossoms are pinched off as soon as they appear, for culinary and perfumery purposes. {Hort. Tour, 324. 372.)

Subsect. 2. Dutch Gardening, in respect to the Culture of Flowers and Plants of

Ornament.

131. The taste for flowers so prevalent in Holland, is thought to have originated with their industry early in the twelfth century, the study of flowers being in some degree necessary, as affording patterns for the ornamental linen and lace manufacturers. Lobel, in the preface to his Histoiredes Plantes, 1756, states, that the taste for plants existed among the Flemings during the crusades, and under the dukes of Burgundy ; that they brought home plants from the Levant, and the two Indies ; that exotics were more cultivated there than any where else ; and that their gardens contained more rare plants than all the rest of Europe besides, till, during the civil wars which desolated this country in the sixteenth century, many of their finest gardens were abandoned or destroyed. Holland, Deleuze observes, had at the end of the seventeenth century, a crowd of dis- tinguished botanists : and was then, as during the century preceding, the country the most devoted to gardening. (Discours sur Vetat ancien et moderne de V Agriculture et de la Botanique dans les Pays Bas. Par Van HuWiem, 1817; Extrait du Discours pro- nonce, $c, a Gand, par M. Cornelissen, 1817.)

132. The botanic garden of Leyden was begun in 1577, thirty-one years after that of Pa- dua. It was confided to Cluyt, a celebrated botanist, afterwards to Bontius, and in 1592, L'Ecluse, from Frankfort, was appointed professor of botany. In 1599 they constructed a green-house, and, in 1633, the catalogue of the garden contained 1104 species. At this time the magistrates, the learned men, and the wealthy citizens were occupied in fa- cilitating the progress of botany, and the introduction of new plants. A ship never left the port of Holland, Deleuze observes, the captain of which was not desired to procure, wherever he put into harbour, seeds and plants. The most distinguished citizens, Be- verning, Favel, Simon de Beaumont, and Rheede, filled their gardens with foreign plants, at great expense, and had a pleasure in communicating those plants to the garden of Leyden. This garden, in Boerhaave's time, who, when professor of botany there, neg- lected nothing to augment its riches and reputation, contained [Index alter Plant. 1720.) upwards of 6000 plants, species and varieties. Boerhaave here exemplified a principle, which he laid down (Elementa Chemia) for adjusting the slope of the glass of hot-houses, so as to admit the greatest number of the sun's rays, according to the latitude of the place, &c. These principles were afterwards adopted by Linnaeus at Upsal, and by most of the directors of botanic gardens in Europe. It was in this garden, about the begin- ning of the eighteenth century, that the gerania? and ficoidiae, and other ornamental exotics were first introduced from the Cape. The garden of Leyden was visited by Sir J. ,E. Smith in 1786 {Tour, &c. vol. i. p. 11.), who observes, that it had been much en- larged within the last forty years, and was now about as large as the Chelsea garden. In 1814 it appeared rather neglected; many blanks existed in the general collection of hardy plants, and the hot-houses were much out of repair. It contains, however, some curious old specimens of exotics, as Clusius's palm (Chamerops humilis), twenty feet high, and upwards of 225 years old ; a curious ash, and various other trees and shrubs, planted by Clusius. A new garden, in addition to the old one, and a menagerie, are in progress. In this new garden the walks are laid with a mixture of peat-moss and tanners' bark reduced to powder. Leyden, Deleuze informs us, was, for more than fifty years, the only city in Holland where there was a botanic garden ; but before the middle of the seventeenth century, they were established in all the provinces.

133. The botanic gardens of Amsterdam and Groningen merit particular notice The former was under the direction of the two Commelins, John and Gaspar, and was the first garden in Europe that procured a specimen of the coffee-tree. A seedling of this tree was sent to Paris in 1714. Two seedlings from this plant were sent to Martinique in 1726, and these the Abbe Raynal observes (Hist, de Commerce, tome xvi. ch. 20.) produced all the coffee-trees now cultivated in the French colonies. This garden still contains many remarkable specimens of Cape and Japan plants. (Hort. Tour, 218.)

30 HISTORY OF GARDENING. Part I.

134. The garden of Groningen was begun by Henry Munting, a zealous botanist and learned man, who had spent eight years travelling in the different countries of Europe, establishing correspondences between botanists and cultivators. He spent the greatest part of his fortune upon his garden; but, in 1641, the states of Groningen, thinking so useful an establishment ought to be under the protection of the republic, purchased it, and appointed him professor. The catalogue of this garden, published in 1646, contains about 1500 plants, without comprehending more than 600 varieties ; 100 of pinks, and 150 of tulips. Henry Munting was succeeded by his son, Abraham, esteemed for his posthumous work, Phytographia Curio'sa. Both these gardens are still kept up, but without that enthusiastic ardor which distinguished the citizens of Holland, when under more auspicious political circumstances than they are at the present time.

135. The Antwerp garden was formerly one of considerable repute in the Low Countries. In 1579 a cata- logue of this garden was given by Dodoens (Florum et Coronarium arb. Hist.) which contained a consider- able number of plants, including a great variety of tulips and hyacinths.

136. The garden of Clifford, near Haerlem, of which Linna;us published the history, was the most cele- brated in 1737. Clifford got all the new plants from England, and corresponded with the botanists of every country. Boerhaave gave him the plants of the Leyden garden ; Siegesbeck sent him those of Russia ; Haller, those of the Alps; and Burman, Roell, Gronovius, and Miller, sent him portions of the seeds which they received from different parts of the world. This garden had four magnificent hot-houses ; one for the plants of the Levant and the south of Europe, one for Africa, one for India, and one for America.

137. The botanic garden of Utrecht was founded in 1630, and contains several palms and other exotics, brought there at that time. It is still kept in tolerable order, but displays no kind of scientific arrange- ment. (Hort. Tour, 244.)

138. The botanic garden of Ghent, established by Buonaparte in 1797, is, in the present day, the richest and best garden of the Netherlands. The area is about three acres : it has a considerable collection of hardy herbaceous plants, arranged after the Linneean method ; a pleasure-ground, in which the trees and shrubs are distributed in natural families, and so as to combine picturesque effect ; an excellent rosary, chiefly trained in the tree manner; and a range of hot-houses, in part with glass roofs. In the pleasure- ground the busts of eminent botanists are distributed with good effect ; and on the large boxes of palms, and other exotics, are marked the name of the donor, or the year in which the plant or tree was originated, or introduced to the garden. On the whole, it is more complete than any garden we have seen south of the Rhine, excepting that of Paris.

139. The royal botanic garden of Brussels has a good collection of orange-trees ; but in all other respects is of a very inferior description.

140. The private botanic gardens of Van Schenen and Dr. Daaler, at Antwerp, are mentioned with ap- probation in the Horticultural Tour. (p. 121.)

141. Tlie botanic garden of M.Parmentier, mayor of Enghien, is not only the richest in the low countries, but, perhaps, in Europe. In 1817, Neill and his companions considered it as only exceeded in exotics by the collection at Kew, or at Messrs. Loddiges.

142. Festivals of Flora are held twice a year, at midsummer and midwinter, by the Agricultural Society of Ghent, and others. The plants are exhibited for three days. " By a pleasing fiction, the plants alone are said to be competitors, and the successful plant is said to be crowned." The reward is an honorary medal. {Hort. Tour, &c. p. 521.)

143. Florists' flowers began to be objects of commerce in Holland, about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Double flowers were then first noticed, or brought into repute, which may be said to have created a new aera in gardening, and certainly laid the found- ation in Holland of a considerable commerce : — the more valuable, as it is totally inde- pendent of political or civil changes, and founded on the peculiar qualities of the soil and climate for growing bulbous roots. The florimania, as it is termed by the French, ex- isted in the highest degree among the Dutch, from the beginning to the middle of the seventeenth century. Many noted instances are on record, of the extravagant sums given for flowers possessing certain qualities agreed on by florists as desiderata, and established about this time as canons of beauty. Hirschfield states, that in the register of the city of Alkmaar, in the year 1637, they sold publicly, for the benefit of the Orphan Hospital, 120 tulips, with their offsets, for 9000 florins ; and that one of those flowers, named the Viceroy, was sold for 4203 florins. When we consider the value of money at this remote period, these sums appear enormous, a florin at that time in Holland [Anderson s His- tory of Commerce) being the representative of nearly an English bushel of wheat.

144. The commercial flower-gardens or bloemesteries of Haerlem have long been the most celebrated for bulbous-rooted flowers. The name of Van Eden has been noted for upwards of a century ; and there are now four gardens occupied by different members of this family, celebrated florists. That of Voorhelm is of equal antiquity and celebrity. Of the gardens of both families, and of several others, accounts will be found in the Horti- cultural Tour. The most extensive and best managed is said to be that of Schneevoght, lately a partner with Voorhelm.

145. The florimanists, Bosc observes, were much more numerous towards the middle of the last century than at this moment (1809). " One does not now hear of twenty thousand francs being given for a tulip ; of a florist depriving himself of his food, in order to increase the number and variety of his anemonies, or passing entire days in admiring the colours of a