No. 200.] 53 



manure they were well aware, and even of sowing green crops to be 

 buried in the soil for that purpose. 



The first mention of a garden in Roman history is that of Tarquini- 

 us Superbus, B. C. 534 ; it abounded with flowers. The next in 

 order of time are the gardens of Lucullus, situated on the promontory 

 of Misenum, in the Bay of Naples. They were of great magnificence 

 and expense, and procured for that general the epithet of the Roman 

 ^erxes. Lucullus introduced the cherry, the peach and apricot, from 

 the East, and thus conferred a benefit. Statues and fountains came 

 into vogue about the commencement of the christian era. The luxu- 

 ry of flowers, under Augustus, was pushed to extreme folly, and Nero, 

 it is related, spent upwards of thirty thousand pounds, $140,000, in 

 the purchase of roses to strew the floor and decorate the walls on oc- 

 casion of a supper. The Romans, according to Pliny, in the summit 

 of their power, had nearly all the different species now under cultiva- 

 tion, since which time the vaiieiies have been multiplied a hundred 

 fold. 



The commercial men of Holland, in the 13th century, were among 

 <he most eminent and wealthy of merchants, and probably imported 

 bulbs from Constantinople to ornament their gardens, of which nearly 

 every commercial man had one. The Horticultural Society of the 

 Netherlands is, perhaps, one of the richest in Europe, having a 

 capital of nearly £20,000, and possessing at Brussels one of the hand- 

 somest gardens on the continent. 



The taste for gardens, in modern times, has not been less universal, 

 nor less operative. They are frequently mentioned in the history of 

 the earliest monkish establishments and religious houses, during the 

 dark ages. Italy and France have been long conspicuous for their ge- 

 neral and ostentatious horticulture. They are more celebrated for 

 their cultivation of delicious fruits, for their ornamental and shady 

 walks, and their various and refreshing artificial fountains of water, 

 llian for the excellence of their culinary vegetables. 



Holland and Flanders were very early distinguished, as they stil] 

 are, for their love of plants and flowers, in which they have probably 

 excelled all the other people of Europe. Previous to the sixteenth 

 century, exotics were more cultivated there than any where else, and 

 their gardens contained a great variety of rare plants. At that early 



