FLOWER GARDENS 



THE well-known Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the 

 Garden Parks of the Persians, the villa Gardens 

 of the Greeks and Romans, prove that back in 

 the ages, as far as historical records can help us to 

 reach, the desire in the hearts of men for gardens has 

 been strongly felt and superbly gratified. Since the 

 early periods of history, men have sought to build for 

 themselves homes and palaces with architectural and 

 sculptural adornment; while building temples to their 

 gods, they have not failed to devise gardens for their 

 own delight. Yet it is, nevertheless, a curious fact 

 that the development of the gardening art did not keep 

 pace with the other arts. As far as it is possible for us 

 to know, and we can learn much, since there are abun- 

 dant records, the arrangement of early gardens was arti- 

 ficially formed, being largely devoid of suggestions of 

 sympathy for nature in any of her free manifestations. 

 And while formal gardens were not as perfect of design 

 in the days of the Persians and Romans as in the cele- 

 brated later period of the Renaissance, the beauty of 

 these later villas depended also too much on the archi- 

 tectural adornment ; the variety of the trees and flowers 

 was small, and the general arrangement and scheme of 



