No. 105.] 487 



plants, and their establishment in the soil. The horticultural skill of 

 the Greeks appears from their writers on geoponics to have been con- 

 siderable. It seems that both ringing and grafting were practised by 

 them ; and the fertilization of the fig tree was etfected by the well 

 know^n practice of caprification. Anatolius and Sotion direct, that 

 when an apple tree is required to bear a larger crop than usual, a liga- 

 ture should be bound tight round the stem. Of the importance of ma- 

 nure they were well aware, and even of sowing green crops to be 

 buried in the soil for that purpose. 



The first mention of a garden in Roman history is that of Tarquinius 

 Superbus, B. C. 534 ; it abounded with flowers. The ne xt in order 

 of time are the gardens of Lucullus, situated on the promonotory of 

 Misenum, in the Bay of Naples. They were of great magnificence 

 and expense, and procured for that general the epithet of the Roman 

 Xerxes. Lucullus introduced the cherry, the peach and apricot, from 

 the East, and thus conferred a benefit. Statues and fountains came 

 into vogue about the commencement of the christain era. The luxury 

 of flowers under Augustus, was pushed to extreme folly; and Nero, it 

 is related, spent upwards of thirty thousand pounds, $140,000, in the 

 purchase of roses to strew the floor and decorate the walls on occasion 

 of a supper. The Romans, according to Pliny, in the summit of their 

 power, had nearly all the different species now under cultivation, since 

 which time the varieties have been multiplied a hundred fold. 



The commercial men of Holland, in the 13th century, were among 

 the most eminent and wealthy of merchants, and probably imported 

 bulbs from Constantinople to ornament their gardens, of which nearly 

 every commercial man had one. The horticultural society of the Nether- 

 lands is, perhaps, one of the richest in Europe, having a capital of 

 nearly .£20,000, and possessing at Brussels one of the handsomest gar- 

 dens on the continent. 



The taste for gardens, in modern times, has not been less universal, 

 nor less operative. They are frequently mentioned in the history of 

 the earliest monkish establishments and religious houses, during the 

 dark ages. Italy and France have been long conspicuous for their gen- 

 eral and ostentatious horticulture. They are more celebrated for their 

 cultivation of delicious fruits, for their ornamental and shady walks, 

 and their various and refreshing artificial fountains of water, than for 

 the excellence of their culinary vegetables. 



Holland and Flanders were very early distinguished, as they still 

 are, for their love of plants and flowers, in which they have pro- 

 bably excelled all the other people of Europe. Previous to the 

 sixteenth century, exotics were more cultivated there than any 

 where else, and their gardens contained a great variety of rare plants. 

 At that early day they carried on a considerable commerce in these 

 articles. They imported plants from the Levant and both the Indies, 

 and exported them to England, France, and Germany. Before the 

 time of Henry the Eighth, the London market was supplied with culi- 

 nary herbs and roots from Holland. And during many reigns after- 

 wards the English kings obtained their gardeners from that country. 



