IV INTRODUCTION. 



Among the Persians, horticulture was most strictly 

 attended to, according to Xenophon, who states that 

 Cyrus the younger was accustomed to inform himself 

 whether the private gardens of his subjects were well kept, 

 and yielded plenty of fruit ; that he rewarded the go- 

 vernors whose provinces were the best cultivated, and 

 punished those who did not labour and improve their 

 grounds. We must not omit the just compliment of Ly- 

 sander to this monarch, who was telling him that many 

 of the trees they were looking at had been planted by 

 himself. The Lacedaemonian observed, " That the world 

 had reason to extol the happiness of Cyrus, whose virtue 

 was as eminent as his fortune, and who, in the midst of 

 the greatest affluence, splendour, and magnificence, had 

 yet preserved a taste so pure, and so conformable to right 

 reason." 



Socrates makes this noble encomium upon agriculture : 

 " It is," says he, " an employment the most worthy of 

 the application of man, the most ancient and the most 

 suitable to his nature ; it is the common nurse of all per- 

 sons in every age and condition of life ; it is the source 

 of health, strength, plenty, riches, and of a thousand 

 sober delights and honest pleasures ; it is the mistress 

 and school of sobriety, temperance, justice, religion, and, 

 in short, of all virtues, both civil and military." 



To shew in what esteem those persons who encouraged 

 or improved this art, were held by the ancients, Plutarch 

 tells us that Ceres and Bacchus were mortals deified for 

 having bestowed on mankind the knowledge of raising 

 fruits. At Rome, especially during the Commonwealth, 

 the greatest generals, consuls, and dictators, with the 

 same victorious hands that overthrew the enemies of their 

 state in war, turned up the earth in time of peace. 



Pompey and Vespasian bore in their triumphs trees 

 which they had procured from the conquered nations, as 



