STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 185 



Aro the lovers iu the song separated, they seek each other, in the 

 garden. 



" I went into the g'arden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see 

 whether the vines flourished and the pomegranates budded." 



Do they meet elsewhere, they repair to the garden. 



"Let us get up early to the vineyard; let us see if the vine flourish, 



and the pomegranates bud forth." 

 The mandrake gives a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant 



fruits." 



Twice they say iu this song they are sick of love ; but they never 

 seem to tire of their garden. 



Take any history of oriental nations, where do you find the peo- 

 ple in their happy moods ? Persian or Turk, Hindoo or Chinee, it 

 is in their gardens. 



At the mention of the city of Babylon, what picture is conjured 

 up most brightly in our minds as we dwell on our readings of her 

 ancient splendor ? We behold in the distance the artificial moun- 

 tain on the plain of the Euphrates, its high rocky precipices 

 overhung with verdant vines and their summits crowned with lofty 

 trees ; and as we come nearer we see that here are the Hanging 

 Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, whose columned terraces were called 

 by cotemporaneous nations, one of the wonders of the world. The 

 Indian princes built some of the most magnificent temples on 

 earth, which are still the wonders of architecture, to the memory of 

 their dead wives — an example of taste we are not qualified to fully 

 applaud or quite condemn; but our ancient brother who built these 

 hanging gardens, and who was no doubt President of the Horti- 

 cultural Society of Babylon, set us a better example, as they were a 

 memorial, not to the dead, but of his devotion to a wife while living 

 and within the reach of his care and sympathy. 



History has left us but little that we can know of Babylon, but 

 the Hanging Gardens must have been the scene of many a happy 

 festival — perhaps a Mecca for horticulturists of all nations to visit — 

 certainly the resort and pride of the Chaldeans ; and when we read 

 that Nebuchadnezzar ate grass and companioned with oxen we 

 almost fancy he is under the slander of some envious heathen who 

 has heard of, but cannot understand the sweet herbs of this garden, 

 or the celery that even then might have been brought up from the 

 sea-coast and domesticated for man's use. 



Coming this way a few centuries, look at Mark Antony and the 

 Roman citizens at the burial of Julius Caesar. Brutus has addressed 

 the multitude, and convinced them that Ceesarwas ambitious, and 



