12 



It is certain from the writings of Cato and others, that the 

 principle inhabitants had their Horti, or country Farms, 

 which grew all kinds of Vegetables, in some luxuriant part 

 of the country near the City, and from them obtained 

 their supply. Hence, in the first years of Rome, we read 

 but of one Garden withia its precincts, that of Tarquin, 

 which w'as evidently one devoted to flowers and ornament ; 

 and even when the walls of the City formed a circuit of 

 fifty miles under the Emperor Valerian,* it appears solely 

 to have been distended by buildings and pleasure grounds. 

 In the first ages after the foundation of the City, the Farms, 

 which resembled our Market Gardens, were cultivated by 

 the chief men with their own hands, as must occur in every 

 new colony, and hence the Piso, the Fabii, the Cicero, the 

 Lentuli, and other celebrated families derived their patro- 

 nymics from ancestors distinguished for the successful cul- 

 tivation of the culinary vegetables intimated by their re- 

 spective names. Even their Dictators were summoned from 

 the Field, and dropped the Plough Staff for a more ex- 

 tended and arduous governorship. 



Of the Kitchen Garden as might be expected, we have less 

 information in the writings that have survived to us than of 

 any of the other Horticultural departments. Literature was 

 confined to the higher classes, these would not condescend to 

 record the rules for planting Cabbages, and there were none 

 more practical, and therefore more useful authors in those days 

 when writing materials were costly and printing unknown. 

 Cato has glanced over the subject, and Varro, Columella, 

 and Palladius have done no more. From the little informa- 

 tion they do afford us, and from casual lights that break in 

 upon us from the writings of other authors, we learn enough 

 to assure us that their Culinary Vegetables were excellently, 

 and than their fruits perhaps better cultivated. 



• Vopiscus in Aureliano. 



