age] 
nas 
ESSAY oz the RISE and PROGRESS of GARDENING 
in IRELAND. By JOSEPH C. WALKER, MRL. 
Correfpondent Fellow of the Antiquarian Society of Perth, and 
honorary Member of the Etrufcan Academy of Cortona. 
*« Gardening is entitled to a place of confiderable rank among the liberal arts. It is as 
*¢ fuperior to landfcape painting as a reality to a reprefentation.” 
WHEATLEY. 
= A MAN hall ever fee (fays Lord Bacon) that when ages 
grow to civility and elegance, men come to build ftately, fooner 
| “ than to garden finely ; as if gardening were the greater per- 
P “ feGtion.” This obfervation has been fully exemplified in 
Ireland : Architecture had arrived at maturity in this ifland, while 
gardening was yet in its infancy. Each religious edifice, it is 
true, had a garden and an Avalgort (or orchard) annexed to it; 
but it appears from inquifitions taken in the reigns of Henry VIN. 
and Queen Elizabeth, that this garden feldom confifted of more 
than an acre, and was folely devoted to the propagation of culi- 
nary herbs,—fave when a {mall part was appropriated to the 
(PA%2 q L Finavain, 
Read May 
16, 1790s 
