104 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Part I. 



vilion on a rock (n), building for the practice of archery (o), green-house (p), pleasure- 

 house (q), and a rock under which the river passes and forms a waterfall (r). (Kraft, 



P-70.) 



479. Horticulture in China is generally considered to be in an advanced state ; but 

 we have no evidence that the Chinese are acquainted with its scientific principles, and 

 especially with the physiology of plants. The climate and soil of so immense a 

 tract as China, are necessarily various ; and equally so, in consequence, the vegetable pro- 

 ductions. Besides the fruits peculiar to the country, many of which are unknown to the 

 rest of the world, it produces the greater part of those of Europe ; but, excepting the 

 oranges and pomegranates, they are much inferior. The orange was introduced to Eu- 

 rope from China, and the pine-apple to China from South America, by the Portuguese in 

 the sixteenth century. 



The Chinese are supposed to have a number of culinary vegetables peculiar to themselves. They are said 

 to cultivate edible plants, even in the beds of their rivers and lakes, and among others, the pi-tsi or water 

 chestnut {Scirpus tuberosus, Rox.), which yields tubers of a farinaceous quality and agreeable taste. The 

 convolvulus reptans {Lour.) grown in ditches, amaranthus polygamus, and tristis, Sinapis Pekinensis, and 

 some others used as pot-herbs. They have also a particular variety of brassica, used both as a salad and 

 in a boiled state. (Abel's Journal.) Le Comte, Du Halde, Eckeberg, and others, praise the manner in 

 which the Chinese cultivate culinary vegetables, which, they say, are abundant in their gardens, and form 

 the chief part of the nourishment of the lower orders. They add, however, that the greater part of their 

 fruits do not equal ours ; either because the Chinese are ignorant of the art of improving them, or because 

 they do not give themselves the trouble. Their grand object is to cultivate corn and rice ; and they are 

 ignorant of botany. One of the authors of these remarks, Captain Eckeberg, has published, in the 

 transactions of the academy of sciences of Stockholm, a treatise on the rural economy of this people ; and 

 Count Lasteyrie has collected what is known on the same subject. The British works, published after 

 different embassies, contain accounts of their modes of propagation, by inarching and local radication ; 

 of their dwarfing forest-trees, producing double-flowers, monstrous unions, and various other exertions, 

 in the way of conquering nature. It is a singular fact, that with all this practical skill, the Chinese do 

 not appear to be acquainted with the art of grafting, otherwise than by approach, nor with inoculation. 

 John Livingston, a corresponding member of the horticultural society at Macao, considers the Chinese 

 as entirely ignorant of the science both of horticulture and agriculture. They make no attempts to im- 

 prove on old practices, or spread newly introduced plants, proofs of which are given by referring to the 

 Pekin Gazette, " an official publication in which all notices relative to any variation or change in 

 their practices are made public," and to the circumstance of " potatoes and cabbages having been 

 cultivated in the neighbourhood of Macao for upwards of half a century, and although highly profitable 

 and productive, yet the method of growing them has not reached Canton, perhaps has not even ex- 

 tended five miles." It is impossible, this writer observes, to establish any distinction between the 

 agriculture and horticulture of the Chinese merely from the plan of cultivation, the same ground being 

 alternately cropped with grain and culinary esculents. 



The culture 'of flowers and plants of ornament seems very general in China. The beautiful varieties 

 of camellia, azalea, rosa, chrysanthemum, and of various other genera, are well known natives of that 

 country. 



480. Hot-houses are not unknown in China. Wathen (Journal of a voyage to China, &c. 

 1814.) describes the villa (fig. 38.). of Pon-qua-qua, a retired merchant and mandarin, 

 as containing a green-house (a), an aviary (b), a banquetting room open on one side ; a 



garden with the walks bordered with porcelain pots of orange-trees and camellias ; and 

 an immense Banyan-tree (Ficus Benghalensis). 



Sect. III. Gardening in Anglo-North America, or the United States and British 



Provinces. 

 481. The use of gardens in North America is very general, though chiefly confined to 

 horticultural or useful productions. B. M'Mahon, in his American Kalendar, says, 

 " America has not yet made that rapid progress in gardening, ornamental planting, and 

 fanciful rural designs, which might naturally be expected from an intelligent, happy, and 

 independent people, possessed so universally of landed property, unoppressed by taxation 

 or tithes, and blest with consequent comfort and affluence." (Pref.) 



M'Mahon is a seedsman in Philadelphia, and " has connected with the seed-trade a botanical, agricul- 

 tural, and horticultural book-store." His work is the first of the kind which has appeared in America, 

 and includes every department to be found in our kalendars. Ample instructions are given for growing 

 the pine, vine, melon, and other delicate fruits, and also for the forcing departments both of the flower 

 and kitchen gardens ; but we cannot gather from the work any thing as to the extent of American prac- 

 tice in these particulars. From this, and the few other American books on gardening, we submit what we 

 have been able to glean, as to the state of horticulture, botanic gardening, and timber-trees. 



