100 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Part I. 



which the narcissus abounds. Captain Benj. Blake, who describes these gardens, in 

 making excursions in the neighbourhood, " stumbled, as it were, upon a most magnifi- 

 cent mausoleum, round which was a walled garden of orange and pomegranate trees." 



464. The gardens of the islands of Japan .partake of the same general character as those 

 of Persia and Hindostan. According to Ksempfer, they display little of taste in design, 

 but are full of the finest flowers and fruits. " Such," he says, " is the beauty of the 

 flowers which ornament the hills, the fields, and the forests, that the country may even 

 dispute the preference in this point with Persia. They transplant the most beautiful of 

 their wild flowers into the gardens, where they improve them by culture. Colors are the 

 grand beauties desired both in plants and trees. Chestnut-trees, lemons, oranges, citrons 

 and peaches, apricots and plums, abound. The sloe, or wild plum, is cultivated on 

 account of its flowers, which by culture acquire the size of a double rose, and are so 

 abundant that they cover the whole tree with a snowy surface speckled with blood. 

 These trees are the finest of their ornaments, they are planted in preference around their 

 temples : and they are also cultivated in pots or boxes for private houses, as oranges are 

 in Europe. They plant the summits of the mountains, and both sides of the public 

 roads, with long rows of fir-trees and cypress, which are common in the country. They 

 even 'ornament sandy places and deserts by plantations ; and there exists a law in this 

 island, that no one can cut down a tree without permission of the magistrate of the place, 

 and even when he obtains permission, must replace it immediately by another." 



465. The gardens of the different African seaports on the Mediterranean, such as 

 Tangier, Algier, Tunis, Tripoli, &c. have the same general character as those of Persia ; 

 but inferior in proportion to the degraded state of society in these comparatively barba- 

 rous places. The author of a Ten Years' residence in Tripoli confirms the remarks 

 of Chardin and Ksempfer, as to the carelessness with which art lends her aid to nature. 

 " In their gardens the Moors form no walks ; only an irregular path is left, which 

 you trace by the side of white marble channels for irrigation. Their form is gene- 

 rally square, and they are enclosed by a wall, within which is planted a corresponding 

 line of palm-trees. The whole is a mixture of beauty and desolation." {Narrative, &c. 



466. The aboriginal horticulture of these countries consists chiefly in the culture of the 

 native fruits, the variety of which is greater than that indigenous to any other country. 

 The peach, the mango, all the palm tribe, and, in short, every fruit-tree cultivated in 

 Persia and India by the natives, is raised from seed, the art of grafting or laying being 

 unknown. Water is the grand desideratum of every description of culture in this coun- 

 try. Without it nothing can be done either in agri- 

 culture or gardening. It is brought from immense 

 distances at great expense, and by very curious con- 

 trivances. One mode practised in Persia consists in 

 forming subterraneous channels at a considerable depth 

 from the surface, by means of circular openings at cer- 

 tain distances, through which the excavated material is 

 drawn up (fig. 34.) ; and the channels so formed, are 

 known only to those who are acquainted with the country. These conduits are described 

 by Polybius, a Greek author, who wrote in the second century before Christ ; and Morier 

 (Journey to Persia) found the description perfectly applicable in 1814. Doves' dung is 

 in great request in Persia and Syria, for the culture of melons. Large pigeon-houses 

 (jig. 35.) are built in many places, expressly to collect it The melon is now, as it was 



2500 years ago, one of the necessaries of life, and when the prophet Isaiah meant 

 to convey an idea of the miseries of a famine, he foretold that a cab of doves' dung 

 would be sold for a shekel of silver. The whole province of Syria was formerly famous 

 for its horticultural productions, of which the bunch of grapes brought to Moses by his 



