GENERAL INTliODUOTION. xv 



and coiitontiiuiit are greatness and lia[)i)iness nnitcd. The praotico of horticulture, 

 no doubt, helprd to occupy, at h'ast, nuich of the leisure hours of the patriarchs* 

 Homer's garden of Auinous enjoyed an eternal sumnu r ; and (he fruits it produced were 

 the apple, the lig, the pomegranate, tiie pear, the olive, and the vine, watered hy 

 a couple of fountains, and encompassed by a hedge. Judging by the mythology of tho 

 Greeks, they must have been great admirers of gardens, as well as lovers of ilowers and 

 vegetables, as they sought to identify some of the most essential and beautiful products 

 of the earth with the deities whom they worshipped. Thus, tho oak was sacred to 

 Jupiter, the maiden-hair to Pluto, the cypress to Narcissus, and the lily to Juno. Ceres 

 had tho poppy, Minerva the olive, and Venus the apple, the myrtle, and the rose. 

 Flowers, in general, were supposed to have sprung from the tears of Aurora ; while the 

 trembling of a leaf, or the waving of a few blades of grass, indicated the passing of the 

 breath of Zephyrus. All this is redolent of the fine imagination and delicious sweetness 

 which characterised tho taste of the old Greeks. The Romans, too, had their horti, 

 both flower and kitchen ; and the Piso, the Fabii, the Cicero, the Lentuli, and oth(;r 

 distinguished names, are derived from ancestors celebrated for the successful cultivation 

 of those vegetables to which these names were attached. The Britons, in the time of 

 Strabo, had plots of ground combining the properties of a kitchen garden with those of 

 an orchard ; and, after the introduction of Christianity, A.D. 507, gardening was 

 practised as an art congenial to the manners of the Saxons. Under the Danes horti- 

 culture continued to advance ; and, on the establishment of the Normans in this country, 

 we find various notices, not only of public, but of private gardens being attached to the 

 dwellings of the people. In 1107, Brithnod, Abbot of Ely, flourished, and is spoken 

 of as being an improver in gardening. " He performed a great and useful work," 

 says the historian of his monastery : " being skilful in the art of planting and 

 gardening, he laid out very extensive gardens and orchards, which he filled with a 

 great variety of herbs, shrubs, and fruit trees." Notwithstanding this, however, it is 

 questionable whether there was either taste or design in the disposition of his flowers 

 vegetables, and fruit trees ; although we think it hardly conceivable, that a man could 

 take delight in an occupation without evincing some principles of design in view, that 

 it might give a greater zest to his pleasures. But be this as it may, it would appear 

 that, before the reign of Elizabeth, the art of gardening was nothing more than a piece 

 of mechanical routine. It had, so to speak, neither taken shape nor form ; but was 

 pursued as it had always been pursued — namely, without departure from the stereotyped 

 modes of preceding horticulturists. The mighty and majestic Bess, however, had a 

 great taste for flowers ; and it was in her reign that the first regular establishment for 

 the scientific cultivation of plants took place in England. Her successor was also 

 a great patron of gardening ; as was his son, Charles I., in whose reign the first glazed 

 edifices for the preservation of tender plants Avere erected. All this, however, is 

 described more at length in its proper place ; as, also, is the most approved practice 

 of horticulture in fashion at the present time. 



In intimate association with fruits and flowers is the bee, an insect which has, 

 perhaps, attracted more attention, and undergone more careful examination, than any 

 other of the insect tribe. To this busy little creature it was deemed necessary to devote 

 a brief division in the following work, that those who are in possession of a garden may 

 gratify the natural desire of giving an occasional minute to watching the activity with 

 which it seeks and dives into those flowers in which it finds the nectar upon which it 



