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. 



