CARD EX. 



GARDEN. 



Ml 



alexanden, parsley, oelery , savin, fennel, dittany, woodmint, wstermint, 

 catmint, LvnUury, beet, manh mallows, carrot, orach (Adripia), kohl 

 hives, radishes, onions, madder, beam, chervil, clary, lovage, 

 succory, uuutard, savory, mint, tunny, poppy, asarabaoca, holly- 

 hocks, parsnip, blite, cabbage, leeks, rocambole, garlic, teaiel, peas, 

 euphorbia Uthyria (Lactanda), houaeleek. From thU proceeding of 

 Charlemagne the revival of garden* may be said to date, for although 

 there are few direct trace* of their existence for some centuries, 

 yet there U no reawn whatever to suppose that they were ever 

 again lost sight of. In the 14th century we find MatUucus Sylva- 

 ticua, a Hantuan phyraciau, (peaking of his own garden, and of a 

 Colocasia cultivate! in his greenhouse on the edge of a beautiful 

 fountain, and of a plant called Cantalis, supposed to be Athamanta 

 cretensis, which he says he brought out of Greece and planted in 

 his garden. (' Pandect/ c. 197, 133.) It was however in Italy 

 that the formation of gardens received a fresh impulse. Alfonso 

 d'Ente, duke of Ferrara, is recorded to have founded several botanic 

 gardens in the 16th century, and especially one called Belvedere, 

 surrounded by the water of the Po. The example was followed by 

 several nobles of Ferrara; John Braaavolo, the uncle of the botanist 

 Husa Braaavolo, had a viriilarium or greenhouse ; another noble, of 

 the name of Acciajuoli, had many rare plants in his garden ; and the 

 collections of this city, augmented annually by the commerce of its 

 merchants with Greece and Asia, became so rich in new exotic plants 

 as to become celebrated all over Europe. The Kerrara gardens were 

 soon rivalled by those of the Venetians and Paduans, one of whom, 

 Gaspard de Gabrichis, ia said to have spared no expense to enrich his 

 garden, not with costly edifices and vast architectural embellishments, 

 but with plants before unknown. (Spreng. 'de K. H.' iv. c. 3.) The 

 greatest and earliest garden however of this era is generally considered 

 to have been that founded at Pisa, in 1544, by Cosmo de' Medici, on 

 the banks of the Arno ; which by the year 1555 had become so rich in 

 plants by the exertions of Lucas Ghini and his successor Cxsalpinus, 

 as to have been the admiration of Belon, no mean judge. Haller 

 indeed is of opinion that a greenhouse built by the bishop of Acquapen- 

 dente dates from the year 1533, but this is at variance with the state- 

 ment of TiraboHchi, who fixes the erection in the year 1545. Be this 

 as it may, it is at least certain that about this period a public garden 

 was formed at -Bologna, others at Lucca, Naples, and Florence; and 

 that at Verona one Caesar Niclesola had two large greenhouses in which 

 some very rare plants were preserved. (Pona, ' It. Bald.' p. 9.) 



At this time Paris possessed no garden for its university; that of 

 Montpellier had, however, been founded by Henri IV., and contained 

 before the end of the 16th century upwards of 1300 French, Alpine, 

 and Pyrenean plants, accordingtoOlivierdeSevreB('Trait<5d'Agricult.,' 

 1600), and a famous garden had been created at Hans by Itenutc 

 Bellaye, bishop of that city. In Germany too, the garden of Breslnu, 

 to which Tragus and Fuchs were attached, of Basel, Straaburg, and 

 other places, were at this time in existence, and the since celebrated 

 garden at Leyden had been founded in 1577, at the instance of Gerard 

 Bontius. 



The principal part of these establishments were founded for 

 academical purposes ; when they were formed for private gratification 

 their owners must be considered very much in advance of their times, 

 if we are to form an opinion from the state of private gardening in 

 this country at the same period. Here the only purpose contem- 

 plated in the formation of a garden appears to have been an en- 

 closed place in which the owner might walk in seclusion, or in which 

 sport might be had with contrivances like mazes and labyrinths 

 formed of close-cut hedges; a few fruit-trees were added; but no 

 such object as that entertained by the refined Italians, of collecting 

 rare and beautiful plants from foreign countries for pleasure or for 

 scientific purposes, was thought of. In the gardens of Nonesuch, 

 the palace of Henry VIII., executed about the year 1540, we hear of 

 shady walks, columns and pyramids of marble, " fountains that spout 

 water one round the other like a pyramid, upon which are ] 

 mall birds that stream water out of their bills," and of similar 

 objects, but nothing of the more essential part of a garden its 

 plants. Pleasure-grounds of this description had existed in England 

 from the time of the Conqueror. It is stated by Fitzstepb.cn 

 that in the time of Henry II. (1154 1189) the citizens of London 

 had large and beautiful gardens to their villas. In the reign of 

 Edward I. (12721307) it may be collected from ' Holinshed's 

 Chronicle,' that the cultivation of the garden was extended to tiie 

 more curious and delicate productions; but the wars of York and 

 Lancaster destroyed all these occupations, and gardens in general 

 ceased to be more than pleasure-grounds or kitchen-gardens of the 

 rudest kind till the time of Elizabeth. King James I. of Scotland 

 describes the garden at Windsor Castle, where he was contiv 

 Henry V., as a place set thick with trees, and alleys of hawthorn 

 hedges, with an arbour in each corner, 



" And mrddli T<TT horborc might be iw-ne 



Tb Kharp gmn twtle jcncpere." Tin Quair. 



Much later (1512) the great Earl of Northumberland, whoso house- 



nwiiiled of Itiil | arsons, had but one gardener, who at 

 hourly in the gaiilcii "fur setting of crbis and clipping of knottU, and 

 mg the said garden clean." Nay, it oliould seem as if sometimes 



' . : ' . :'. : , .. the workmen of thi i. m - hold 

 nod the gardener of tin- place where my lord lycth. if t/irrtbcune. 



. !!.) 



In these remarks all reference is omitted to the gardens of the 

 Arabs; about which almost nothing is known, but which c. 

 have been more deserving historical record than those of other con- 

 temporary nations. That this people in tho height of their ]nv<.r 

 paid great attention to botany, in ell known to those who are 

 familiar with that science. A learned work on rural ofiairs was 

 written in the 12th century by Abu Zachoriah Ebn Alva, a native of 

 Seville, of which an epitome has been given by Cosirius r 

 Escurial,' i. 326, s.) ; and according to Mr. Loudou, this wi 

 a list of plants cultivated in tho gnr 



that of the Greeks and Romans. In the 13th century the then Vizir 

 of Cairo, Ebn-Beitor, a native of Malaga, was so much attai 

 botany that he visited all parts of the East for the oxpre.- 

 extcnding his knowledge of plants. His works ore preserve. 1 . 

 in the library of the Escurial, and it is said that although lie .-ernpu]. .u-iy 

 abstained from describing a: U he had not - 



speak* ol 2000 species more than Dioecorides. (S| It is 



only reasonable to suppose that such a man had a garden. \\ > must, 

 however, fix the period when gardens first Began to bo 

 improved, in the middle of the 16th century, when, as hn- 

 already shown, the rich Italians turned their atU -ntion t 

 ductiou of new and rare plants. By the time that this new tastt- 

 to be fixed in the minds of Europeans, the numerous geographical dis- 

 coveries that had been made by the Portuguese and Spaniards, hod 

 opened new and unheard-of sources from which the lovers of gardens 

 were able to enrich them. It would appear that the maize, th 

 tobacco, and the cotton-tree (Bombax) were brought Uy the 



Spaniards so early as the end of the 15th century (Ban.-i.-i, 1 Hist.' i. 241, 

 and King Ferdinand is recorded to have preferred the pirn 

 brought home in Columbia's second voyage, to all other fruits. (lY'.r. 

 Martyr. ' Reb. 90. Dec.' 1. 2, b. 89.) 



It would be impossible to trace the progress of public taste in the 

 construction of gardens any farther historically, without occupying 

 more space than such a subject con have allotted to it in a work of. this 

 description. It may easily be conceived that from tin; time w! 

 taste for gardens revived, up to the present period, there has 1 

 gradual improvement in such places, commensurate with 1 1 

 individuals and the commercial power of nations, their peaceful habits, 

 the security of property, and their general progress in settlii 

 relations of social life. In the remainder of this article we sh:>. 

 a few remarks ,upon the most important causes which have 

 buted to bring gardens to their present improve! condition, an 

 elude by a brief account of some of the most remarkable Botanical 

 Gardens of the present day. 



The first great step that was mode by gardeners to advance their art 

 beyond mere mechanical operations, was the invention of glasshouses, 1 

 in which plants might be grown in an artilii-i.il climate, and protected 

 from the inclemency of the weather. Until this was effected, it is 

 obvious that the cultivation of exotic plants in Km ,lly its 



northern kingdoms, must have been much circumscribed. Mr. I 

 refers the invention of greenhouses to Solomon do Cans, architect and 

 engineer to the Elector Palatine, and who constructed the paid 

 Heidelberg in 1619. But there can be no doubt that buildings of thin 

 description claim a higher antiquity. The specularia of t 

 whether pieces of talc 5 feet long, or, as we rather suppose, sashes 5 

 feet long glazed with talc, were certainly used for tin- purpose of 

 forcing roses and some other plants ; they were essentially greenhouses, 

 although perhaps more like our garden-frames. It is scar.-. Iv likely 

 that where gardening survived, the learned men, in whose hands all such 

 subjects then were, should have been unacquainted with tin existence 

 of these specularia, and they would naturally endeaVbur to 

 them. Greenhouses certainly existed among the Italians in the middle 

 of the 10th century, as has been already mentioned, and 

 reason to suppose they had then for the first tune been thought of. In 

 fact, the ancient viridarium seems to have been a room with on 

 of it glazed with sashes reaching from the top to the bottom, and 

 resembling the old English conservatory. It may or m .\ not have 

 ated ; probably not, for it was chiefly Greek, Egyptian, and 

 Lcv.mt plants that were at first cultivated as rarities by" the v. 

 Italians, and they required no artificial heat in Italy. 



If heat were required, it would be supplied by stoves or such 

 contrivances as were used for domestic purposes. Ray says, that in 

 1684 the greenhouse in tho Apothecaries' garden at Chelsea was heated 

 by means of embers placed in a hole in the floor : anil it ap|>car. 

 a section of a greenhouse in the Electoral garden ;. . pub- 



lishcd in ' Mcdicus Index I'lantaruin,' that a German stove was used 

 there as late as 1771. We however agree with Mr. London in r,,n- 

 ; the invention of ylau-rooft for greenhouses to be an ;er.i from 

 which the principal part of modern i nts takes its date. ThU 



happened in 1717, when Switzer published the plan of a forcing-house, 

 suggested by the Duke of Rutland's graperies at Belvoir Castle, i . 

 to that time the want of light must have rendered it impossil 

 employ greenhouses for the growth of plants, cither in wiin 

 i-iiinnier; they coul.l only have been hybernatories, receptacles in 

 which plants might be protected from wet or cold during winter, but 



