Chap. 19.] THE PLEASURES OF THE GARDEN. 149 



second of these productions. It furnishes a juice that is ex- 

 tensively employed in washing wool, and it is quite wonderful 

 how greatly it contributes to the whiteness and softness of 

 wool, It may be produced anywhere by cultivation, but that 

 which grows spontaneously in Asia and Syria, 9 upon rugged, 

 rocky sites, is more highly esteemed. That, however, which 

 is found beyond the Euphrates has the highest repute of all. 

 The stalk of it is ferulaceous 10 and thin, and is sought by the 

 inhabitants of those countries as an article of food. It is em- 

 ployed also for making unguents, being boiled up with the 

 other ingredients, whatever they may happen to be. In leaf 

 it strongly resembles the olive. The Greeks have given it the 

 name of " struthion." It blossoms in summer, and is agree- 

 able to the sight, but entirely destitute of smell. It is somewhat 

 thorny, and has a stalk covered with down. It has an ex- 

 tremely diminutive seed, and a large root, which is cut up and 

 employed for the purposes already mentioned. 



CHAP. 19. (4.) THE PLEASURES OF THE GARDEN. 



Having made mention of these productions, it now remains 

 for us to return to the cultivation of the garden, 11 a subject 

 recommended by its own intrinsic merits to our notice : for we 

 find that in remote antiquity, even, there was nothing looked 

 upon with a greater degree of admiration than the gardens of 

 the Hesperides, 11 * those of the kings Adonis 12 and Alci- 



Pliny nor any of the Greek writers mention the Radicula as being used 

 for dyeing. Some, again, identify it with the Gypsophila struthium of 

 Linnaeus, without sufficient warranty, however, as Fee thinks. 



9 The Gypsophila struthium grows in Spain, and possihly, Fee says, 

 in other countries. Linnaeus has "pretended," he says, that the Spaniards 

 still employ the root and stalk of the Gypsophila for the same purposes as 

 the ancients did the same parts of the Radicula. He himself, however, 



sophil 



ferulaceous plants, and the leaf is quite different in appearance from that 



of the olive. 



11 As Fee observes, hy the word "hortus" the Romans understood 

 solely the " vegetable" or "kitchen-garden;" the pleasure garden being 

 generally denominated "horti." n * See B. v. c. 1. 



12 A fabulous king of Phoenicia, probably, whose story was afterwards 

 transferred, with considerable embellishments, to the Grecian mythology. 

 Adonis is supposed to have been identical with the Thamnmz of Scripture, 



