44 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1881. 



}y connected therewith, gives us no insight whatever into the 

 condition of the horticultural arts. Tliere is a passage in the 

 fourtli and last book of the Georgics which contains the intima- 

 tion that gardening might become the subject of a future poem, 

 but unfortunately for us, if such was the poet's purpose, he did not 

 survive to execute his conception. The passage is as follows : — 

 " And now, were I not just furling my sails with the close of my 

 labors and hastening to turn my prow towards land, perhaps I 

 might sing how rich gardens should be adorned — what treat- 

 ment is needed for the rosaries of Paestum, where flowers 

 come twice a year — how endive and green banks of parsley de- 

 light in drinking the rills ; and liow the cucumber winding 

 through the grass swells in round juiciness. I might sing too and 

 forget not of the snowflake and the flexile broom, and of the ivy 

 with its creamy foliage ; and of the myrtles that love the shore. 

 Do not 1 remember that old Corycian who amid his vervain and 

 white lilies found happiness of mind that was equal to the wealth 

 of kings ? Ah yes, the first was he to gather the rose of Spring 

 and the fruit of Autumn. And even when sad Winter split the 

 rocks with cold and bridled the current of the streams with ice — 

 in that very season was he cropping the locks of the soft Acan- 

 thus. He had Lime trees (for the bees) and Stone Pines in. great 

 abundance, and as many fruits as the liberal tree had given pro- 

 mise of in early blossom so many did it retain in time of ripe- 

 ness. But these I must leave on one side, restrained by the nar- 

 row bounds I have ])rescribed myself, leaving them to others to 

 record." The first Roman garden, of wliich we have any account, 

 was that of Tarquinius Superbus in the fifth century B. C. But 

 at the beginning of Roman power every household, however hum- 

 ble, was supposed to own its small plot of ground, and in the 

 laws of the twelve tables the words Aortus and herediuTn or gar- 

 deti and inheritance were equivalent terms. As Rome increased 

 in power and population, and the exigencies of city life rendered 

 open air gardens impracticable, they resorted to pot and window 

 gardening, and adorned stairwaj^s, steps and balconies, as well as 

 windows, with pots and vases of vines and flowering plants. 

 But the distinctive feature of Roman gardening was the Roman 

 villa and the pleasure grounds connected therewith. The best 

 description to be found of this, is the letter of Pliny the younger, 

 describing his villa and garden at Tusculum. It is as follows: — 

 " Before a portico in front of the house is a sort of terrace embel- 

 lished with curious figures and bounded with a box hedge, from 

 whence you descend by an easy slope adorned with the represen- 

 tation of divers animals in box answering alternately to each 

 other into a lawn overspread with the soft — 1 had almost said the 



