No. 200.] 51 



folia of botanists. The fruit of this tree is said to be of great beauty, 

 and the shape gives the idea of a piece having been bitten off; it is 

 now poisonous, though said to have been excellent before Eve ate 

 of it. 



The Erfyplians, B. C. 2000, according to Sir Isaac Newton, in- 

 vented the art of cultivating the soil ; they possessed a great variety 

 of fruits, and held the peach tree as sacred to Harpocrates, the god 

 of Silence, for the reason that its fruit resembled the heart, and its 

 leaves the human tongue. Of Jewish gardens, King Solomon's, B. C. 

 1500, is the principal one on record. The area of his garden was 

 quadrangular, and contained a variety of plants, odoriferous and showy 

 flowers, as the rose, lily of the valley, the calamus, the spikenard, 

 saflfron, and cinnamon ; timber trees, as the cedar, pine, and fir ; and 

 the richest fruits, as the fig, grape, apple, and date. The agricultural 

 productions of the Jews, at this time, were wheat, barley, rye, millet, 

 vetches, lentils, and beans ; their gardens produced cucumbers, me- 

 lons, gourds, onions, garlic, anise, cumin, coriander, muslard, and 

 various spices. Vines were raised from seed, and it appears probable 

 they were aware of the effects of one flower being impregnated with 

 the pollen of another ; for Moses says, Deut xxii.. 9, " Thou shalt 

 not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds : lest the fruit of thy seed 

 which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled." 



The Persians, B. C. 500, were very fond of gardens, which Xeno- 

 phon says were cultivated for the sake of beauty as well as fruit. 

 King Cyrus, whose garden was at Sardis, conceived, disposed, and 

 adjusted the whole himself, and planted a considerable number of 

 trees with his own hands. According to Pliny and other Roman au- 

 thors, in the gardens of limited description, the trees were arranged 

 in straight lines and regular figures ; and the margins of the walks 

 covered with tufts of roses, violets, and other odoriferous flowering 

 plants. 



A tower was a necessary appendage to an eastern garden from the 

 most remote era — see Isaiah, v. 2. See again, 700 years afterward, 

 Matt., xxi., 33. Epicurus taught philosophy in a garden in the city 

 of Athens. Lord Bacon, in his learned Essay on Gardening, consi- 

 ders gardening as rather a neglected art in Greece, and makes the 

 following striking and philosophic remark : " That when ages grow 

 to civility and elegance, men come to build stately sooner than to gar- 



