11 



theui as worthy of cultivation, was a very suflicient reason 

 for the contrary being the case. When Architecture had 

 done ita best to cause a variety of positions ; shade and 

 coolness had been procured by Avenues and Fountains, and 

 Fragrance obtained by beds of Roses, &c. ; their object was 

 obtained, for amid such they delighted to repose ; and as 

 they required in consequence of their heated climate, no 

 extent of surface to wander over, these were secured in a 

 very small space, and a still less sufficed to contain the 

 few herbs they cultivated for use, though the V^ineyard and 

 other enclosures of Fruit Trees were necessarily much more 

 extensive. 



The continent of Asia we have seen rapidly became peo- 

 pled and divided into various empires, and these again as 

 the population increased, prompted by various motives, sent 

 forth colonies into neighbouring districts. The Greeks hav- 

 ing peopled the whole of Asia Minor, passed thence into 

 the neighbouring country of Italy, and from thence descended 

 tlie Romans, the state and progress of whose Gardening we 

 shall now proceed to consider. 



First of their Kitchen Gardens. 



We are not speaking without consideration, or with too 

 great positiveness when we declare that we know of no reason 

 for concluding that an establishment for the cultivation of 

 culinary plants ever existed within the walls of Rome, either 

 separate or combined with the pleasure Garden. In an ad- 

 vanced period of the empire, and perhaps much earlier than 

 we have records, there was in the city a Fora JlolUorum, 

 or Market Place for the sale of Garden produce, to supply 

 the inhabitants generally. I am inclined to think that it 

 was supplied from the Farms of the chief men of the City, 

 and not by any persons who subsisted by such trafick 



