240 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



" In Italy, during the middle ages, internal warfare confined men to 

 their fortresses, and no gardens existed save those ' pleasauhces ' cultivated 

 within the castle's quadrangle. When times grew more peaceful, men 

 became more trustful, ventured forth, enjoyed the pleasures of a country 

 life, and gardening prospered. In monasteries especially, the art received 

 attention ; but if was not until the beginning of the 16th century that a 

 decided advance was manifest, and then we have to note a return to the 

 style of gardening that flourished in ancient Rome itself. Lorenzo de' 

 Medici possessed a garden laid out in the revived classical manner, and 

 this style, which is recognized as the Italian, has existed in Italy with 

 certain modifications ever since. Its chief features are the profuse use of 

 architectural ornaments — the grounds being subdivided into terraces, 

 and adorned with temples, statuary, urns and vases, beds cut with math- 

 ematical precision, formal alleys of trees, straight walks, hedges cut into 

 fantastic devices, jets of water, elaborate rock-work, and fish-ponds dug 

 into squares or other geometrical forms. Every thing in these gardens 

 is artificial in the extreme, and in set opposition to the wild luxuriance of 

 nature ; and although the trees and shrubs are planted with a great 

 regard to precision, they are too frequently devoid of all artistic effect. 

 During the last century, the Italian style became blended with English 

 landscape-gardening, but without much success ; for the formality of the 

 original style clings to all Italian gardening at the present day. 



" English gardening does not seem to have been regularly cultivated 

 until the reign of Henry VIII. ; although previously to his time, parks 

 and gardens had been laid out- Bluff King Hal formed the gardens of 

 Nonsuch I'alace in Surrey on a most magnificent scale, decking them 

 out with many wonderful and curious contrivances, including a pyramid 

 of marble with concealed holes, which spirted water upon all who came 

 within reach, — a practical joke which our forefathers seem to have relished 

 highly, for the ingenious engine was imitated in other gardens after that 

 period. In this reign also were first laid out by Cardinal Wolsey the 

 Hampton Court Gardens, containing the labyrinth, at tliat period an 

 indispensable device of a large garden. The artificial style in James I.'s 

 time called forth the indignation of the great Lord Bacon, who, although 

 content to retain well-trimmed hedges and trees, pleaded strongly in 

 the interest of nature. He insisted that beyond the highly dressed 

 and embellished parts of the garden, should ever lie a portion sacred 

 from the hand of man — a fragment of wild nature ! He calls it, " the 

 heath, or desert." During Charles II.'s reign, landscape-gardening 

 received an impulse. It was in his time that Chatsworth was laid out, 

 and that buildings were introduced into gardens. During his reign, too, 

 lived Evelyn — a spirit devoted to the service of the rural genius. In 

 his Diary, Evelyn makes mention of several noblemen and gentlemen's 



