200 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



very generally distributed, there will the gardener be 

 most encouraged. In the infancy of societies, where 

 there is little wealth, the gardener's art does not exist 

 as a separate occupation. Each family, if there is any 

 knowledge of gardening, provides for its own wants. 

 There is reason for believing that, in the middle ages, 

 the little garden cultivation was principally committed 

 to the females of the family. The men were fighting. 

 This plan might be the best under the circumstances 

 of the case; but it is obvious that the art would not 

 greatly thrive where there was little profitable in- 

 dustry of any kind. The growth of trade and man- 

 ufactures established gardens for the public supply. 

 When, through the observation of travellers and the 

 labours of commercial adventurers, the indigenous 

 productions of different regions were assembled to- 

 gether in one country, and the mutual wants of man- 

 kind had caused them to dwell together in thickly 

 peopled cities, the minute spots once attached to indi- 

 vidual dwellings, and which sufficed for the constant 

 supply to their inmates of a few vegetables, would dis- 

 appear from the towns. More extensive spaces would 

 be allotted in the neighbourhood, which could be 

 made to contain all the varieties of soil necessary for 

 the successful rearing of dissimilar productions; while 

 the knowledge and the time required for that extended 

 cultivation would no longer be within the compass of 

 members of families. From the very necessity of 

 the case, professional gardeners would be called into 

 occupation. 



There is perhaps no country to be found, wherein 

 the arts of civilized life have made any considerable 

 progress, to which the foregoing remarks do not in 

 some degree npply; although certainly the amount 

 of skill which has been displayed upon the subject of 

 gardening varies considerably among different com- 

 munities. A slight sketch, all that our limits will 



