110 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETT. 



This age was the first which produced any very interesting 

 writers on agriculture, but their worlis are nearly all lost ; among 

 those which have come down to us are the writings of Cato, Varro, 

 Pliny, Virgil, and Columella. 



The third or modern period extends from the fall of the Roman 

 Empire to the present time. During the earlier part of this period 

 Europe was sunk in barbarism, and the art of gardening was 

 preserved through the dark ages almost wholly by the attention 

 paid to it by the monks. It was not until the fifteenth century 

 that gardening was revived with other arts. The most celebrated 

 gardens at this time were those of the great Lorenzo de Medici. 

 The gardens of Turin, Genoa, Florence, Naples, and Milan were 

 among the most remarkable, that of the royal residence at Milan 

 being the finest. The park contained three thousand acres, besides 

 culinary, botanic, and fruit gardens, orangeries, hothouses, etc. 



During the two succeeding centuries the science of gardening 

 spread throughout almost all Europe, being probably as well 

 understood in France as in any country of the continent. But 

 the work of bringing it to its greatest perfection seems to have 

 been left to the British isles. It was first introduced by the 

 Romans in the fourth century, but was lost again in the fifth, 

 when they left Britain. Little is known of its development until 

 the reign of Henry the Eighth in the sixteenth century, when it 

 received that stimulus which has since carried it so vigorously on. 

 In the eighteenth century the modern style of landscape gardening 

 was introduced, and Pope and Addison were among its first 

 friends ; they not onl}^ wrote upon, but practised it, both having 

 small gardens near London. 



Gardening as a Science is founded on a classification of the 

 facts which have been observed, and the establishment of the 

 principles which govern them. The objects of gardening are two : 

 the cultivation of vegetables and fruits for the sustenance of man, 

 and the formation of external sceneiy to please the eye and afford 

 public and private recreation. This second general division may 

 be sub-divided into Systematic Botany^ or plants studied in relation 

 to their difference, nomenclature, and classification ; Vegetable 

 Anatomy and Physiology, or the study of plants as living beings, 

 in which is considered the form of their organs, modes of nour- 

 ishment, and multiplication ; Botanical Oeography, in which plants 

 are considered as to climate, soil, habitation, etc. ; and Applied 



