No. 105.] 485 



adopted as a suitable award to competitors, in promoting tiie success- 

 ful cultivation of vegetables, flowers and fruit. 



With much regret your committee must here remark, that until 

 within the last few years, the art of cultivating the earth has been 

 by many parents considered a degrading pursuit. From fallacious 

 views, they have looked upon the handling of the plough, the spade, 

 and the rake, as not so likely to confer riches, honor and dignity, as 

 some other occupations. The earliest records of history, however, 

 establish the pleasing fact, that terraculture has excited the sweetest 

 and loftiest strains of the poet ; that it has engaged the attention of 

 the great and the good ; and that the most profound philosophers 

 have deemed it a study of primary importance. 



The subject of horticulture comes recommended to us from the de- 

 clarations of Holy Writ ; for it is recorded in the second chapter of 

 the book of Genesis, that " the Lord God planted a garden eastward 

 in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed, to dress 

 and to keep it. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow 

 every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." And from 

 the contents of the third chapter, we may infer that the cultivation 

 of the fig, and other tempting fruits, was well understood. 



All ancient history begins with fable and tradition, and the fabu- 

 lous gardens of antiquity are connected with the religions of those 

 times. Each order of religion has its system of creation, its heaven 

 and its hell, and what now concerns us, each had its system of gar- 

 dens. 



The garden of Jewish tradition is for the use of rcan ; that of the 

 Eastern polytheism is appropriated to the gods ; and the Mahomme- 

 dan paradise is the reward held out to the good in a future state. 

 The inhabitants of Ceylon say, that paradise was situated in their 

 country, and Johnson informs us, that they point out the tree which 

 bore the forbidden fruit, the Divi Lander, or Tabernemonfana alteani- 

 folia of bo anists. The fruit of this tree is said to be of great beauty, 

 and the shape gives the idea of a piece having been bitten off; it is 

 now poisonous, though said to have been excellent before Eve ate 

 of it. 



The Egyptians, B, C. 2000, according to Sir Isaac Newton, invent- 

 ed the art of cultivating the soil ; they possessed a great variety of 

 fruits, and held the peach tree as sacred to Harpocrates, the god of 

 Silence, for the reason that its fruit resembled the heart, and its leaves 

 the human tongue. Of Jewish gardens. King Solomon's, B. C. 1500, 

 is the principal one on record. The area of his garden was quadrangu- 

 lar, and contained a variety of plants, odoriferous and showy flowers, 

 as the rose, lily of the valley, the calamus, the spikenard, satfron, and 

 cinnamon ; timber trees, as the cedar, pine, and fir ; and the richest 

 fruits, as the fig, grape, apple, and date. The agricultural productions 

 of the Jews, at this time, were wheat, barley, rye, millet, vetches, len- 

 tils, and beans ; their gardens produced cucumbers, melons, gourds, 

 onions, garlic, anise, cummin, coriander, mustard, and various spices. 

 Vines were raised from seed, and it appears probable they were aware 

 of the effects of one flower being impregnated with the pollen of 



